184 
A42 




MARYLAND TOLERATION ; 



OR, 



SKETCHES OF TOR EARLY HISTORY OF MARYIA^J, 



TO THE YEAR 1650. 



BY THE REV. ETHAN ^LLEN, 

PEESBYTEE OF THE PEOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHDECH, BALTIMOEE CO., MD. 



BALTIMORE : 

JAMES S. WATERS. 



MDCCCLV. 



Entered, 

According to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by 

ETHA^^ ALLEN", 

In the Clerk's Office of the U. S. District Court, for the Distrir-t of Connecticut. 






MARYLAND TOLERATIOI; 



SKETCHES OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF MARYLAND. 



More than two years ago, the present writer drew up the following 
sketches, at the request of some of his younger brethren in the Ministry, 
who wished to have the facts of our early history before them. And at 
the request of brethren whom he does not feel at liberty to refuse, he 
now sends them forth in this form. In putting forth these sketches of 
the early history of Maryland, it is right he should state, that he has 
nothing to present, but what is already known to those who are familiar 
with its beginning and its subsequent progress. And his purpose now 
simply is, to set forth chronologically, such facts within his reach, as 
have come down to us, and exhibit and illustrate directly or indirectly its 
religious character and condition. He has endeavored to avoid putting 
down mere probabilities, aiming to let the facts, as much as possible, 
speak for themselves. 

A. D. 1608. 

THE FIRST EXPLORATION OF CHESAPEAKE BAY AND RELIGIOUS SERVICES. 

The first permanent Colony which settled in Virginia, as is well 
known, was a Church of England Colony; and settled there in 1607. 
In June and July of the following year, the celebrated Capt. Smith, 
Governor of Virginia, undertook to explore the Chesapeake Bay. In his 
history of the Virginia Colony,* we learn, that he left Jamestown, the 
second day of June, in an open barge of near three tons burthen, having 
in his company, a physician, six gentlemen and seven soldiers. 13*6^ 
returned in nine days. This voyage does not seem to have been satis- 

* 1 Vol. p. 182. 



factory to hiin, for on the 24tli of July, he set out again, in order to 
complete the discoveries which he had before commenced. He took now 
with him a physician, five gentlemen and six soldiers. He apjjears at 
Ihis time, (1608,) to have examined the Fiay and its shores to the Sus- 
quehaniiah i)retty thoroughly ; excepting that part of the Eastern shore, 
from Swann's point in Kent County, to the lower part of what is now 
Dorchester County. This he passed without examination. 

But he records — and it forms a beautiful introduction to our religious 
history — that during the voyage of exploration, " our order was daily to 
have Prayer with a Psalm." Thus early, as we are here shown, two hun- 
dred and forty-six years ago, when the shores of the Chesapeake were 
occupied by the wild Indians — and they pagans— and its waters for the first 
time wafted on their surface the bark of the white man— did prayers and 
hymns of praise ascend in the name of Jesus to the living God. It was 
then, for the first time, that the shores and waters of our noble Bay re- 
sounded with the teachings of God's Holy Word, the Bible, and with the 
Services of His Worship. These men, the then Governor of Virginia, 
and those with him, were not unmindful in the wilderness and on the 
deep, of the God Who has all things in His hands. They were Christ- 
ians, Church of England Christians, who had the book of Common 
Prayer. They were men who prayed to God daily, and daily off"ered to 
Him praise. Thus, with the very first sail of our Anglo-Saxon race, that 
ever caught the breeze upon the waters of the Chesapeake— came the 
Bible and the book of Common Prayer— and men of stout Christian 
hearts to use them. " Our order was daily to have Prayer and a Psalm — 
at which solemnity the poor savages much ivondered^ It was mdeed, 
under the circumstances, a solemnity. It was no light thing, nor was it 
done in a corner. The Indian himself saw— and seeing it he wondered. 

1612. 

THE EXTENT OF THE TERRITORY OF VIRGINIA. 

In 1612, March the 12th, there was granted to the London or South 
Virginia Company, the Charter known as the third and last Virginia 
Charter. It is mentioned here, because it shows us the extent ot terri- 
tory given at that time to that Company.* It states that it extended 
" from the point of land called Cape or Point Comfort, all along the sea 
coast northward two hundred miles ; and from the said Point or Cape 
Comfort, all the sea coast southward two hundred miles. And all that 

* 1 Hazzard, 1 3. 



space and circuit of land, lying from the sea coast of the precinct afore- 
said, up into the land throughout, from sea to sea West and North- West," 
etc. North thus of Point Comfort, the Virginia territory included all that 
is now Maryland and Delaware, and one-third at least of New Jersey and 
Pennsylvania. Maryland, therefore, that now is, was then a part of Vir 
ginia ; it was all in Virginia territory and known as Virginia. 

THE VIRGINIANS A CHURCH OF ENGLAND COLONY. 

Now with respect to Religion in the " articles, orders and instructions," 
etc., set down for Virginia Nov. 20, 1606, seven months after the first 
Virginia Charter was issued, is found the following : " We do specially 
ordain, charge and require the presidents and Councils [of the two Vir- 
ginia Colonies] respectively, within their several limits and precincts, that 
they with all care, diligence and respect, do provide that the true Word 
and Service of God and Christian Faith, be preached, and planted, and 
used," etc., " according to the doctrine, rites and religion, noiv professed 
and established ioithin our realm of England.'' * In the second Charter, 
that of May 23, 1609,f it is said, " we should be loath, that any person 
should be permitted to pass, that we suspected to atfect the superstitions 
of the Church of Rome. We do hereby declare, that it is our will and 
pleasure, that no one be permitted to pass in any voyage, from time to 
time into the said country, but such as shall have first taken the Oath of 
Supremacy," &c. And the third Charter empowers certain officers there 
specified, to administer the oath of Supremac}', which was also the oath 
of allegiance,:j: to " all and every person, which shall at any time or 
times hereafter, go or pass to the said Colony of Virginia." This oath 
thus prevented any one from becoming a resident in Virginia, who could 
not, or would not acknowledge the King, as the temporal head of the 
Church ; and required the officers specified, to see it administered. The 
Colony was thus consequently made a Church of England Colony. 

And while upon this point, it may be well to add, that in 1619, the 
Church of England was established in the Colony. And up to this 
time, there had been neither papists nor puritans in it. "There is 
reason however to believe," says Dr. Hawks,§ " that about this time, a 
small number of puritans sought refuge in the Colony, but it was too in- 
considerable to introduce any change in the religious opinions of the 
people, and public worship continued to be conducted as it alioays had 
been, in conformity with the Ritual of the Church in England.\\ In 

* 1 Henning, 69. f 1 Hazzard, 72. % 1 Hazzard, 78. 

§ Hawks' Contributions Va., p. 35. | See Henning. 



6 

1631-2 was enacted the following,— " It is ordered that there be a uni- 
formity throughout this Colony, both in substance and circumstance to 
the Canons and Constitution of the Church of England as near as may 
be ; and that every person yield ready obedience to them, upon penalty 
of pains and forfeiture in that case appointed." So late as 1639, twenty 
years after the establishment of the Church in the Colony, several laws 
were then made against the puritans ; and so rigorous were these laws, 
that " none but conformists in the strict and most absolute sense were 
permitted to reside in the Colony."* These however were made by way 
of anticipation, for, says Burk.f " as yet there were none amongst them. 
They were made to prevent the infection from reaching the country." 

1624. 
In this year, by the judgment of the Court of the King's bench, upon 
a quo warranto, the Charter of Virginia was annulled, and on the 20th 
of August, the Kingl "appointed and authorized for ordering, mana- 
gino- and governing the affairs of the Colony, persons residing in the 
part's of Virginia." Of the twelve thus appointed, three were subsequent- 
ly Governors of the Colony, and among the others was William Clai- 
borne.§ He came out first in 1621, 'To survey the planters' lands and 
make a map of the country.' We mention his name here, because it 
plays so conspicuous a part in after years. In this commission, the King 
says, " We did resolve, by altering the Charters of said Company, as to 
the point of government, wherem the same might be found defective, to 
settle such a course, as might best secure the safety of the people there, 
* * and yet with the preservation of the interests of evertj planter 
or adventurer, so far forth, as their present interests shall not prejudice 
the public plantations." 

1625. 
This year, on the 2Vth of March, King James died, and was succeeded 
by Charles 1st. On the fourth of that month, previous to James' death, 
a Commission was issued appointing Sir George Yeardly, one of the 
before named C.ouncil, Governor, leaving out two others, but continuing 
William Claiborne, and adds, " J^rasmuch as the affairs of state in said 
Colony and plantation, may necessarily require some person of quality and 
trust to be employed as Secretary, for the writing and answering such let- 
ters, as shall be from time to time directed to, or sent from the said Gov- 



* 2 Bozman, 198. \ 2 Buvk, 67. % 1 Hazzard, 191, 192. 

§ 1 Helming, 116. 



ernor and Council of the Colony aforesaid, our will and pleasure is, and 
we do by these presents nominate and assign you, the said William Clai- 
borne, to be our Secretary of State, of and for the Colony and plantation of 
Virginia."* In using the word quality in this Commission, we are shown 
something of the position in society of Claiborne, for it was " a word in 
use, in those times, signifying men of the first rank in society under the 
degree of nobihty, and synonymous to gentry^^\ 

In the proclamation of Charles 1st, for the settling the plantation of 
Virginia, dated May 13, 1625, it is said, that the repeal of the Charter^ 
" was not intended to take away or impeach the particular interest of any 
private planter, — the government of the Colony of Virginia, shall imme- 
diately depend upon ourself — [before, it had depended on the London or 
South Virginia Company] — and not be committed to any company, or 
corporation to whom it may be proper, to trust matters of trade and com- 
merce, but cannot be fit or safe to communicate the ordering of afi'airs of 
state," etc. The officers in the Colony therefore now appointed, were to 
be responsible to the King — and not to the Company, as before. These 
commissions have been referred to here for future use in this sketch. 

1627. 

Gov, Yeardley was now dead ; and on the 20th of March, 162 7, John 
Harvey was appointed Governor.§ The same commission appointing 
him, continued Claiborne one of the Council, and also in his oflice of 
Secretary of State. Thus under three successive Governors, he was a 
member of the Council, and under two. Secretary of State. These 
commissions, says McMahon,|| " abundantly evidence the high estimation 
in which he was then held." 

" During the years 1^26, V, 8,^ the Governors gave authority to Will- 
iam Claiborne, 'the Secretary of State of this Kingdom,' as that most 
ancient dominion was then called, to discover the source of the Chesa- 
peake Bay, or any part of that Government, from the thirty-fourth to the 
forty-first degree of North latitude. This was, as a learned Annalist 
(Chalmers) alleges, " in pursuance of particular instructions from Charles 
1st to the Governors of Virginia, to procure exact information of the riv- 
ers and the country." McMahon says,** that he received these licenses 
from the English government — licenses to trade under which he was 
authorized to discover, &c. 

* 1 Hazzard, 233, 4. f 2 Bozman, 100, note. % 1 Hazzard, 204, 5. 

§ 1 Hazzard, 234, 5. j p. 7, note. *![ 1 Bozman, 265. 

** p. 7 



1629. 

While acting under these licenses, as Claiborne himself states in a peti- 
tion to the King, in 1638,* " he discovered, and did then plant upon an 
Island in the great Bay of Chesapeake, in Virginia, by them named the 
Isle of Kent, which they, bought of the kings of the country, and built 
houses, transported cattle, and settled people thereon, to their very great 
costs and charges." He does not indeed state the year in which this was 
done. But in a " Breviat of the proceedings of the Lord Baltimore,"! 
it is stated that the Island called Kent was seated and peopled under the 
Virginian government, three or four years befoi-e the King's grant to him," 
that is. Lord Baltimore. As that grant was made in 1632, three or four 
years previous, would be 1628 or 9. In a pamphlet of 1655, called 
Virginia and Maryland,^ it is stated, that " the Isle of Kent was planted 
almost three years, before the name of Maryland was ever heard of." 
This too would fix that event to 1629. For the name Maryland was 
given to the territory which still bears the name, in 1632. Such were the 
statements of men high in office, to those high in office in England, who 
all well knew the fact. 

Claiborne thus discovered the Island ; purchased it of the Indians, and 
then took up the lands on it according to the custom of the Colony at 
that time.§ The settlement was at that time recognized as one of the 
settlements of the Virginia Colony, and sent burgesses, who sat in the 
Assembly of Virginia- 
Kent Island is on the Eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay, at the 
mouth of Chester River, opposite the city of Annapolis ; precisely in that 
part of the Bay, which we have seen was not examined by Capt. Smith 
in 1608 ; and was, as Claiborne says, discovered by himself. It is stated 
in Scott's Geography of Maryland, to be fourteen miles long, by six and 
one-half miles broad, and contains thirty-nine thousand acres. 

Thus so early as 1629, Kent Island, then in Virginia, was occupied, 
settled and cultivated by Virginians, under the government of Virginia. 
And the preceding documents show not only that it was in V^irginia, and 
a part of Virginia, but also that its settlers, of whom there were more 
than one hundred, were of the Church of England, just as was its pro- 
prietor himself._jNor was its proprietor inattentive to its religious inter- 
ests ; for among the occupants there, was the Rev. Richard James, a 

* 2 Bozman, 582. f 1 Hazzard, 628. X P- 9, see also 1 Hazzard, 621. 

§Streeter'8 "Maryland two hundred years ago," p. 12. 



Clergyman of the Church of England,* if not from the beginning of 
the settlement, yet within a very short time afterwards. It was the prior 
settlement to that of St. Mary's, by five years; and was the nucleus, from 
which subsequent settlements spread over to the main laud, in the Coun 
ties now known as Kent, Queen Anne, and Talbot. And so true have 
been those counties to their early Church, that to this day, only three 
Romanist Chapels are found in their borders, and but one resident priest. 
And so did the Church of that Island spread, that in 1692, when the 
Church of England was established in the Colony, six parishes were 
erected within its limits, one of which is known to have had four Church 
edifices — St. Paul's, Queen Anne County. 

In October, 1629,t Sir George Calveil, the first Lord Baltimore, a 
Romanist nobleman, visited Jamestown in the Virginia Colonv. Imme- 
diately on his arrival, the Virginia Assembly, then in session, as required 
by the instructions before mentioned,^ caused the oath of allegiance and 
supremacy to be tendered to him.§ The oath of supremacy, obliged him 
who took it, to acknowledge the King as the temporal head of the Church 
of England ; and the oath of allegiance, required submission and obedi- 
ence to the King, as an independent sovereign. These oaths. Lord Balti- 
more must have taken before in England ; but now he declined them, 
and the Assembly contented itself by referring the matter to the King 
and council.! Leaving Jamestown therefore, he sailed up the Bay to 
examine it — but he could not have been long so engaged, for in the fol- 
lowing January he was at home in England.*|[ 

1631. 

It has been already seen, that in the years 1626, 7, 8, William Clai- 
borne was licensed, or commissioned according to instructions from the 
King, by the Governor of Virginia, to trade and make discoveries in the 
Chesapeake Bay, and that while so doing, he discovered and purchased 
of the Indians Kent Island, and made a settlement there. This, as he 
states in his letter to the King in 1638, Lord Baltimore took notice of. 
And whether in the year 1630, he had heard of Lord Baltimore's appli- 
cation for a grant, which would include Kent Island, and desired to make 
his own title to it still more secure or not, he now himself made applica- 
tion to the King, and obtained from him a license, which he seems to have 
supposed, would secure to him his Island beyond question. This license 

* Virginia Records, Mr. Streeter. •)• Mr. Streeter's Address, p. 2. :j:p. 3. 

§ 1 Bozman, 255. j) Hawks' Church of Va , p 47, 2d Br.rk, 25. 

Tf Streeter, p. 11. 



10 

bears date May 16, 1631, and reads thus: "These are to license and 
authorize you, the said William Claiborne, one of the Council and the 
Secretary of State, for our colony of Virginia, his associates and company 
freely and without interruption^ from time to time, to trade for corn, furs, 
&c., with their ship, boats, men and merchandise, in all seas, coasts, 
harbors, lands, or territories in, or near, those parts of America, for which 
there is not already a patent granted to others, for sole trade * * * 
giving, and by these presents granting unto the said William Claiborne, 
full power to direct and govern, correct and punish .such of our subjects, 
as shall be under his command in his voyages and discoveries, etc."* 
Now, when had patents for sole trade been granted? In the year 1629,f 
a commission had indeed been granted to Captain Bass, by the Governor 
of Virginia, to trade between the forty-first and thirty-fourth degrees of 
north latitude — or to sail to New England, or the West Indies, — but 
there was not one word in it, about sole trade. From the mere wording 
of the King's license to Claiborne, it may not appear at first sight, to have 
had any reference to Kent Island. But in his petition to the King, and 
the Councils' decision thereon, in 1639, we are shown that it was so 
understood. And it was supposed by Claiborne, and the King also, to 
give him, that is Claiborne, the authority to govern the discoveries he 
might make. The title to territory according to usage was to be deiived 
from the Colonial authorities, but here was given him the power to exer- 
cise Government. 

In this year, 1631, was a second settlement pjade within the territory, 
subsequently embraced in Lord Baltimore's charter — that of the Swedes \, 
near what is now Wilmington, Delaware. In 1627,J a number of Swedes 
and Finns came over to America, and purchased of some Indians, the 
land from Cape Henlopen, on both sides of the Delaware Bay ; and 
erected a fort on the West side of the Bay, near the Cape, not far from 
what is now Lewistown, Delaware. This was for the purpose of defense 
against the Indians in carrying on trade. But in 1631, the Swedes 
erected a fort further up the Bay, on the same side, on Christiana Creek, 
near what is now Wilmington ; and there, they laid out a town, and 
made a settlement. ■ That settlement was soon cut ofl" by the Indians, 
but the Swedes nevertheless continued to hold possession there. The 
settlers of course were members of the Swedish Church. The beginning 
of which Church there, was thus made. 

1632. 
We come now, to the time when Lord Baltimore obtained his Charter, 

* 1 Bozman, 266, Tiote. f 2 Burk, 32. % \ Bozraan,- 260. 



11 

or grant of Maryland. On the 25th of April of this year, Sir George 
Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, died ; and was succeeded by his eldest 
son, Cecil Calvert, as heir to his title and his estates. On the 1 6th of 
the June following, a Charter was granted to this second Lord Baltimore 
from Charles 1st, giving him that part of the territory of Virginia, extend- 
ing from Watkins Point on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, north- 
ward to the fortieth degree of North latitude ; and from the ocean to 
the Potomac west, containing more than eight millions of acres. This 
grant. Lord Baltimore considered, as including the whole peninsula, 
between the Delaware and Chesapeake, up to the fortieth degree of lati- 
tude, which crosses the Delaware, a little above the city of Philadelphia ; 
embracing thus, all of Delaware and Pennsylvania, up to that point. And 
this is doubtless a true and fair construction of the boundaries given him. 

This territory, the King named Maryland, the land of Maria, that 
being the name of his Queen, and was given, as "a country hitherto 
uncultivated, in the parts of America, and partly occupied by savages" — 
in partibus Americce hactenus inculta et barbaris. This, however, was 
not true. The Swedes, as we have seen, had planted a Colony on the 
western shore of the Delaware, near half a degree, or thirty miles south 
of the fortieth degree of latitude. But it may be admitted that Lord 
Baltimore either did not know of this recent settlement, or that his north- 
ern boundary would include it. But not so of Kent Island That had 
been settled ihree years previous, by Church of England Virginians ; 
and Lord George Calvert, who it is claimed drew up the Charter and 
was there more than two years before this, knew it. Claiborne says, in 
his petition to the King, 1638,* that Lord Baltimore took notice of it 
when there. A pamphlet of 1655 says,f " that Lord Baltimore pretended, 
though not truly, that the country was unplanted, and that his sugges- 
tions to the king, that those parts were uncultivated and unplanted unless 
by a barbarous people, not having the knowledge of God, was a misin- 
formation." It certainly was not the fact. 

Now, bearing in mind, that this Charter was given by a Protestant~ 
King, of a thoroughly Protestant Kingdom, to a Romanist nobleman of 
that kingdom, let us inquire what it says connected with, and bearing 
upon religious matters. 

In the first place, then, it says. Section 2d, of Lord Baltimore, that 
" being animated with a laudable and pious zeal for extending the 
Christian religion," &c. It may indeed have been the animating zeal of 

* 2 Bozman, 582. f Maryland and Virginia, pp. 5, 9, 13. 



12 

the fivst Lord Baltimore, to extend the Christian religion as he received 
it, that is Romanism ; but we have very little proof that it was of the 
second Lord Baltimore to whom the Charter was actually given. Besides, 
it was a customary formula in Charters before granted, whether givea-to 
Church of England-men, puritans, or Romans. Bozman says,* " this cant 
pervades all the charters of North America, both French and English." 
And we are not surprised that he should call it cant, when he advocatesf 
" a total prohibition, enacted by law, against missionaries being permitted 
to go among the Indians," and calls " planting Christianity among a 
[this] people that knew not God, nor had heard of Christ, a false and 
unfounded sentiment!" 

The words, Protestant, or Roman Catholic, or their synonyms, are not 
found in the Charter. All that is granted in it, therefore, is independent 
.of any such expressed distinction. 

In the 4th Section, however, " the patronages and advowsons of all 
Churches, which, with the increasing worship and religion of Christ, 
within the said region * * aforesaid, hereafter shall happen to be 
built, together with the license and faculty erecting and founding Church- 
es, Chapels, and places of worship, in convenient and suitable places 
within the premises, and of causing the same to be dedicated or conse- 
crated according to the Ecclesiastical laws of our Kingdom of England," 
along with other rights and privileges, were granted to Lord Baltimore. 

This, it will be perceived, confined the erecting and founding of 
Churches and Chapels, and all places of worship, to his license and fac- 
ulty. None consequently could be built but such as he should permit 
and authorize. It placed thus the erecting of Protestant Churches, and 
Roman Catholic ones also, at his will and pleasure ; so that if he saw fit 
he could forbid and prevent any of either name from being built. 

Again, it gave him alone, the right and power of presenting such 
Ministers to the Churches built, as he should choose ; thus keeping it out 
of the hands of the Bishops, or others, in the Roman Church on the one 
hand, and of Protestant patrons, or the people on the other.' This was 
not indeed worse in the Charter than in some cases in Eughxnd. For 
the right of advowson, or the presenting of Protestant ministers in 
England, was a privilege enjoyed by some Roman Catholic nobleman 
there, as late as in the reign of William and Mary. The conferring 
these powers thus, placed the Church, whether Romanist or Protestant, 
in his hands ; it could not move a step, in the matters mentioned, onl) 

* 1 Bozmaa, 185. f 2 Bozman, 3'.i9, note. 



13 

as he should see good. And it took it out of the hands of the pope and 
priests, as well as out of the hands of protestants. 

But there was this restriction. Every Church edifice must be conse- 
crated, if consecrated at all, according to the Ecclesiastical laws of the 
kingdom of England. Now, according to these laws, no one could con- 
secrate a Church or chapel> but a Bishop of the Church of England. 
And Gibson in his ecclesiastical law,* and Burns from him, say, that 
"after a new church is erected, it may not be consecrated without a com- 
plete endowment." And both the Canon and the Civil law enjoin, that 
the endowment be actually made before the building be begun. There 
was indeed at this time, no form of consecration provided by law. One 
was however in general use, drawn up by l^ishop Andrews. Thus, no 
Church in the Colony could be consecrated, whether Church of England, 
Roman Catholic, or Presbyterian, but by a Bishop of the English Church; 
and not by him even, until a competent endowment for the support of 
the Minister and Church was actually provided and secured. Thus far 
the Romanist churches were subjected to the Protestant Episcopacy ; and 
it was not to be avoided, but by not having them consecrated at all. 

In the next place, the 10th Section of the Charter guarantees to all the 
Colonists, without any distinction of Church names, all the privileges, 
franchises and liberties of the kingdom of England. That section, so far 
as immediately concerns this point, reads thus — " We will also, and of 
our more abundant grace, for us, our heirs and successors, do firmly 
charge, constitute, ordain and command, that the said province be of our 
allegiance ; and that all and singular, the subjects and liege-men of us, 
our heirs and successors, transplanted or to be transplanted into the prov- 
ince aforesaid, and the children of them, &c., be and shall be natives 
and liege-men of us, our heirs and successors, of our kingdom of England 
and Ireland, and in all things shall be held reputed and esteemed, as the 
faithful lipge-men of us, &c., also lands, tenements, revenues, services and 
other hereditaments whatsoever, within our kingdom of England, and 
other our dominions, to inherit or otherwise purchase, receive, take, have, 
hold, buy, possess, and the same to use and enjoy, and the same to give, 
sell, alien and bequeath ; and likewise all privileges, franchises and liber- 
ties of this our kingdom of England, freely, quietly and i^^aceably to 
have and possess, and the same may use and enjoy, In the same manner 
as our liege-men of England, without impediment, molestation, vexation, 
impeachment or grievance of us, or any of our heirs or successors; any 

* See Article, Church. 



14 

statute, act, ordinance or provision, to the contrary thereof notwithstand- 
ing." 

That these privileges, franchises and Uberties, include Ecclesiastical as 
well as civil, is clear from the use of the word all, which excludes none, 
particularizes none, and is restricted to no one class. This is also dis- 
tinctly shown, by the Acts of the Assembly themselves. Thus, at the 
Session of the General Assembly, there was an Act passed in 1640, 
entitled, " An Act for Church liberties.^'' This Act itself, we have not ; 
but in leYG, it was enacted as a perpetual law. And Bacon* tells us, it 
enacted "that holy Church within this province, shall have and enjoy 
all her rights, liberties and franchises, wholly and without blemish." 
This, it is presumed, is sufficient to show, that these terms were intended 
to include Ecclesiastical, as well as civil franchises, &c. 

Such thus, was the guarantee to all those, who, under this Charter, 
became colonists in Maryland ; whether Protestants or Romanists, it 
secured to them the benefits of the rights and laws of England. 

Finally, in the 22d and last Section, it is provided, that no interpreta- 
tion of the Charter be made, by which the holy rites, or Service of God 
and the true Christian Religion, may in any wise suflFer change, prejudice, 
or diminution or, as the original is, 2>'roviso semjier, quod nulla fiat inter- 
pretation per quam sacrosancto Dei, et vera Christiana religio, * * * immu- 
tatione, prejudicio vel dispendio patiantur. Sacrosancto, by the very usage 
of the term, applies to things external, consecrated or set apart to God, 
things not inherently holy. The term is to be interpreted according to the 
theological usage of the day, and not according to classical usage. This 
the authorities show abundantly. 

The Holy Service of God, and the true Christian Religion, could hon- 
estly and fairly mean, only that which was then established by law in 
England. Otherwise it would make a Protestant king and government 
say, that the Romish worship and religion, were the holy worship and 
service of God, and the true Christian Religion the very thing which the 
law and government of England protested against, and utterly repudi- 
ated. Bi/ law, the Romanist was forbidden to use the rites and ceremo- 
nies of his own Church, and required to attend the Services of the 
Protestant Church under a penalty of £20 per month if absent. Every 
priest subjected himself to two hundred marks penalty, for each time he 
said mass ; and every person hearing it to one hundred, and both to a 
year's imprisonment. Subsequently to this law, every priest was banished 
from England, and could not return under pain of death ; and all persons 

* Laws of Maryland, 1640. Chap. 1. 



15 

receiving or assisting such priests were made guilty of a capital felony. 
Every person confessing the Romish religion, and convicted of absence 
from the Established Church, might be imprisoned without bail, until he 
conformed ; or if he refused after three months, was banished the realm. 
Later still, those Romanists refusing to conform, were forbidden under 
penalties, to appear at Court, or dwell within ten miles of London ; or go 
on any occasion more than five miles from home ; were made incapable 
of practising in physic, in surgery, in the common or civil law ; of being 
judges, clerks, &c., of presenting to the livings within their gift, or of be- 
ino- executors, or guardians; and unless married by a protestant minister, 
each party forfeited the property, otherwise received from the other 
party ; unless their children were baptized by a Protestant minister, they 
were subjected to a fine of £100 in each case ; and if not buried in a 
Protestant cemetery, the executor was liable to pay £20 for each corpse. 
Every child sent out of the kingdom to be educated, forfeited all property 
by descent, or gift ; and the house of every Romanist might be searched, 
and his books and furniture relating to religion, might be burnt, and his 
horses and arms taken from him. Later still, the Romanist was required, 
by a new oath of allegiance, to renounce the pope's temporal power, on 
pain of perpetual imprisonment and confiscation of their property. Such 
were the existing laws ; and laws, too, which the King, six years previous 
to the granting of the Maryland charter, and now at this time also had 
to make an appearance of executing, and Romanists were only relieved, 
by paying the King to dispense with these penal laws. 

These things are mentioned, not as in the least justifyng them ; but 
as showing that a Protestant King, checked by a Parliament, more 
protestant than himself, and they by a people more protestant still, could 
not have secured to Romanists what was secured by the charter, to the 
exclusion of Protestants. In truth, it was not so attempted ; but what 
was secured to one, was secured to both ; if, indeed, any favor was secured 
to either, it was to Protestants, as shown by the restrictions imposed upon 
Lord Baltimore. And any act or decision on his part, which would inter- 
fere with, or prevent the exercise of that rehgion, which the Protestant ,, 
Government of Great Britain held, as God's Holy Worship and the true ' 
Christian Religion, would violate the Charter and render it at any time 
liable to be revoked. 

It was not howeveV toleration, as now understood, that it was intended 
that Charter should secure. It was protection simply. Toleration, in its 
present sense, had not then been dreamed of, and was not aimed at by , 
any one. But that it actually did provide for the protection of the liber- 



16 



ties privileges, rights, &c, of the members of the Church of England as 
such, who might come to Maryland, is beyond all question 

Now, whether this feature of the Charter was the original conception 
ot Lord Baltimore, is not material, and cannot now be shown. But what 
gave It Its authority was the King's signature and seal, before the giving 
ot which, as IS well known, it was most thoroughly examined by himself 
and by the Privy Council also, by whom it certainly did undergo some 
changes. And that these changes did not relate to this very point is 
quite improbable. The authority, then, which gave Protestants prot'ec- 
hon m the Colony, was the King's own authority, and he a Protestant. 
I Irom the same source, came the authority to protect the Romanist, in 
the same colony, in the enjoyment of the same rights, privileges, fran- 
chises, &c as were guaranteed to Protestants ; with slight exceptions in 
favor of the Protestants, though placing both and all under the restricted 
government of a Roman Catholic, Lord Baltimore. 

1633. 

VIRGINIA PETITIONS AGAINST THIS CHARTER. 

No sooner did the Virginia Colony-which, as we have seen, was a 
Church of England Colony-hear of the grant of Lord Baltimore, than 
they sent a petition to the King, remonstrating against it. The petition 
Itself IS not known to be extant, nor is its precise date known. But from 
the decision of the Star Chamber upon that petition,* we learn they 
stated, 'that some grants have lately been obtained [by Lord Bl of a 
great portion of lands and territories of the Colony, [of Va.,] being the 
places of their traffic and so near to their habitations as will gfve a 
general disheartening to the planters if they be divided into several gov- 
ernments, and a bar put to that trade which they have long since exer- 
cised towards their supportation and relief, under the confidence of his 
Majesties royal and gracious intentions towards them." This however 
was more largely stated in the petition itself. 

On the 12th of May, 1633, the King referred the petition to the Star 
Chamber. And their Lordships ordered that the parties, the Virginia 
planters and Lord Baltimore, should be heard on the 25th of June and 
accordingly on that day they were heard. It was then ordered that the 
parties should meet together, and accommodate their controversy in a 
friendly manner, if it might be, and likewise set down in writing the 
propositions made by either party, with their several answers and reasons 

*2 Boz. 565. 



17 

to be presented to the board. This was complied with, and in July, 
" their Lordships having heard, and maturely considered the said propo- 
sitions, answers and reasoris, and whatsoever else was alleged on either 
side, did think fit to leave Lord Baltimore to his patent, and the other 
parties, to the course of laio according to their desire. But for the pre- 
venting of further questions and differences, their Lordships did also think 
fit and order, thai things stand as they do — the planters on either side, 
shall have free traffic and commerce with each other, and that neither 
party shall receive any fugitive persons belonging to the other, nor do any 
act, which may draw on a war from the natives, upon either of them. 
And lastly, that they shall entertain all good correspondence, and assist 
each other, on all occasions, in such manner as becometh subjects and 
members of the same state." So reads the decision in Hazzard ;* and so 
Bozmanf has it, in his first edition. But in his second, he follows Chal- 
mers' reading of it; which, instead of being "that things stand as they 
do," reads, " that things standing as they do." The authority of Haz- 
zard is, however, to be preferred before that of Chalmers. And as the 
former has it, things were to stand as they then did, till the matter should 
be settled by a course of law. In the latter, it is made the ground of 
deciding about assisting each other, and as was already therein decided. 

And how did things stand? Why, the Virginia planters were not by 
that decision to be dispossessed of Kent Island ; nor was Lord Baltimore's 
patent to be invalidated. The question of i\iQ prior claim of the Virgin- 
ians, was left at their desire, to a course of law. That question, the Star 
Chamber did not decide upon. They did not decide any more against 
the Virginians, than they did against Lord Baltimore. So, at least, it is 
clear, that the Virginians themselves understood it, as shown both by 
their after course, and by Burk in his history of Virginia,! '^here he says, 
that the board " acknowleged the justice of the claim of the Virginia 
planters." They certainly granted the request of these planters, that the 
matter should be left to take the course of law which they desired. 

In November 22d, 1633, Lord Baltimore's colony left England for 
America. Cecil, the second Lord Baltimore, was then twenty-eight years 
of age. He does not seem to have been so dissatisfied with the civil dis- 
abilities under which he was placed in England, but that he remained 
there instead of crossing the Atlantic, to his retreat from Protestant per- 
secution. He therefore sent out his brother, Leonard Calvert, then at the 
age of twenty -six, as Governor of his Colony, appointing two of the 



• 1 Hazzard. f 1 Bozman, 381. ^2 Burk, 39. 

2 



18 

colonists for his assistants. A younger brother, George, also came out, 
but it seeras that he was so little of a Romanist, that he could do what 
his father declined to do in Virginia — that is, to take the oaths required ; 
for, as it is said, he lived and died there. Indeed, it must not be over- 
looked, that the first and second Lord Baltimores were two different men. 
For while the elder, as it may be conceded, sought in the Virginia terri- 
tory to build up an asylum for the oppressed and persecuted Romanists, 
the son, as proof in abundance may be found to show, had his eye upon 
the pecuniary advantages to be derived from his large grant of land, in 
no small degree. 

It was now eighteen inonths from the date of his Charter, that his 
Colonists set sail. The number of Colonists, is stated by Oldmixon, at 
about two hundred.* He mentions Leonard Calvert, Esq., Governor, and 
Jeremy Hawley and Thomas Cornwallis, Esqrs., Assistants or Councillors. 
The other chief and principal characters, were Richard Gerard, Edward 
Winter, Frederick Winter, Henry Wiseman, Esquires, Mr. John Saun- 
ders, Mr. Edward Canfield, Mr. Thomas Greene, Mr. Nicholas Fair- 
fax,f Mr. John Baxter, Mr. Thomas Dorrell, Capt. John Hill, Mr. John 
Medcalfe and Mr. William Sayre. Most of these, are said to have been 
gentlemen of fortune, and also Roman Catholics. And among others, 
were two Jesuit Priests, Fathers Andrew White and John Altham, 
and two lay-brothers, or temporal coadjutors, John Knowles and Thom- 
as Gervase.;]; They were sent out by the superior of their order, 
on the application of Lord Baltimore. The colonists came over in the 
Ark, a vessel of four hundred tons burthen, and the Dove, a pinnace of 
forty tons. How large a proportion of the emigrants were Roman 
Catholics, is not now known. All, however, certainly Avere not such. 
Father White, in his narrative of their voyage, written about a month 
after the landing at St. Mary's, speaks repeatedly of the Roman Catho- 
lics, in such a way, as to show that they did not constitute the whole 
number of the emigrants — that there were others besides them.§ One 
instance in particular, would show the number, not Romanists, to have 
been a very large proportion. They were now in the West Indies. 
And " no one," says Father White, " was attacked with any disease, till 
the festival of the Nativity of our Lord. That the day might be more 
joyfully celebrated, the wine flowed freely, and some who drank immod- 



* 2 Bozraan, 26, from 1 Oldmixon, 184. 

\ Died on the voyage. 

X B. U. Campbell's Sketch. 

8N. C. Brooks' Translation, pp. 11, 13, 19. 



19 

erately, about thirty in number, were seized with a fever the next day, 
and twelve of them not long after died, and among them, two Catholics, 
Nicholas Fairfax and James Barefoot, caused great regret with us all.'' 
If the number not Romanists, that died, indicates anything like a true 
proportion, the proportion of protestants among the colonists must have 
been large. The fact thus stated, speaks however for itself. But though 
care was taken to have four Romanist priests and assistants, as before 
stated, yet the Protestants were not favored with even one minister to 
look after them and break to them the Bread of Life. They were in this 
thing, uncared and unprovided for. 

1634. 

In the month of February, the 2'7th, Lord Baltimore's colony on their 
way to Maryland, stopped for a few days at Jamestown, in Virginia. 
While there, as stated by Captain Claiborne, (that title he had borne 
since 1631, and was still a member of the Council and Secretary of 
State,) to the Governor and Council of Virginia, March the 14th, Gov- 
ernor Calvert had " signified to him, that he, Claiborne, was now a mem- 
ber of that [Maryland] plantation, and therefore, he should relinquish 
all relation and dependence on this [the Virginia] colony." And yet 
Claiborne himself was now not only a resident in Jamestown, but was 
still a member of the council and Secretary of State there, and had been 
for the ten years past. Still, he was the proprietor of Kent Island, and 
the colony there were Virginians, and had been and were now under the 
jurisdiction of the Virginia government. The claim of Governor Calvert 
was not only, that the Kent Island settlers, with the proprietor, should 
submit to his government, but it involved their title to the right of soil 
also. Admit Governor Calvert's claim, which, as we have seen, the Star 
Chamber did not decide on, byt referred to the courts of law, and 
it involved the necessity of abandoning their plantation, and thus losing 
the fruits of past years of labor, or of a repurchase of the soil from Lord 
Baltimore, upon his own terms of plantation, as they were then called, so 
that instead of holding under Captain Claiborne, upon the annual pay- 
ment of two capons. Lord Baltimore would become entitled to his quit 
rents from them, of which more will be said presently. 

On making the statement thus, of the demand of Governor Calvert 
upon him, which Captain Claiborne did to the Governor and Council of 
Virginia, he requested the opinion of the Board, as to *' how he should 
demean himself, in respect to Lord Baltimore's patent, and his deputies in 
the Bay." " It was answered by the Board, that they wondered why any 



20 

such question was made ; that they knew of no reason why they should 
render up the rights of the place of the Isle of Kent, more than any 
other formerly given to this [the Virginia] colony, by his Majesty's 
patent, and that the right of my Lord's [Baltimore's] grant, being yet 
undetermined in England, we are bound in duty, and by our oaths, to 
maintain the rights and privileges of this colony," &c.* They thus 
clearly understood the decision of the privy council of July previous, not 
to have been against their claim, and also that the matter was as yet 
undetermined. And they therefore determined not to relinquish their 
jurisdiction, nor Claiborne his proprietorship. Captain Claiborne and his 
colonists were thus sustained in Virginia, as well as in England, in not 
surrendering to Lord Baltimore's Governor, either the government of the 
settlement at Kent Island, or their right of soil. 

Eleven days after this action of the Governor and Council of Virginia, 
March 25th, 1034, Governor Calvert landed with his colonists at the 
Island which they named St. Clements. It was the day of the Annuncia- 
tion of the Virgin Mary. After celebrating Mass, the Romanists formed a 
procession, and proceeding to a spot selected, they erected a great Cross, 
while the Litany of the Holy Cross was chanted — " the Governor, Com- 
missioners, and other catholics, participating in the ceremony."f It does 
not appear thus, that the Protestants did participate in it. 

After having explored the Potomac as far up as Piscataway, the Gov- 
ernor and men returned, and under the direction of Captain Fleet, a 
resident of Virginia, who had accompanied them on the 27th of March,J 
they sailed up St. George's River, which they so named — a tributary of 
the Potomac — and landed on the right bank, and " having proceeded 
about a thousand paces from the shore, we gave the name of St. Mary's 
to the intended city. And that we .might avoid all appearances of 
injury and hostility, having paid in exchange, axes, hatchets, hoes, and 
some yards of cloth, we bought from the [Indian] King, thirty miles of 
his territory, which part now [1634] goes by the name of Augusta 
Carolina"§ — containing upwards of 1.50,000 acres. 

St. Mary's is twenty miles from the mouth of the Potomac, one hun- 
dred miles from .Jamestown, and forty-three miles from Kent Island, in a 
direct line, and about eighty by water, as measured upon the map. 
Here a town grew up, with the progress of population called a city. It 
was the seat of government and continued so to be, till 1694, when the 

* 2 Bozman, 571. f Father White, p. 19. 

X 2 Bozman, 30. § Ibid, p. 21. 



21 

government was removed to the city of Annapolis. In 1720 the State 
House was given to the parish of Wilham and iMary for a church. In 
1830, the building was very much decayed and a new edifice was erected 
in its place, the only building now on the spot, where the city of St. Mary's 
once was. Now then, there were at this time within the Territory of 
Maryland two settlements ; one of which, consisting of more than one hun- 
dred, had been settled on Kent Island, for five or six years. This was 
a Church of England Settlement and had a resident Church of England 
clergyman. Its proprietor was a Protestant, and it was under the Pro- 
testant Government of Virginia. A settlement as before mentioned had 
been made at Christina on the Delawar<^ — which was also Protestant, 
but was not at this time, it is believed, replaced. 

The other of the two mentioned was the settlement at St. Mary's, con- 
sisting of about two hundred. Its proprietor was a Roman Catholic and 
so was it government. Its priests were of the Order of the Jesuits. The 
settlers were partly romanists and partly protestants. So that putting 
the settlers of both the settlements together, it is by no means unlikely, 
that the majority was Protestant even then. 

Tlie claim of Virginia on Kent Island, as understood by Virginians, 
had been sustained at least for the time being, by the Privy Council in 
England, and also by the Governor and Council of Virginia. And now, 
four months after the arrival of Lord Baltimore's colonists in St. Mary's, 
on the 2'2d of July, the committee of the privy council for the colonies, 
known as the Commissioners for Plantations,* wrote to the Governor and 
Council of Virginia thus:f 

" His majesty doth let you know, that 'tis not intended that interests 
whicli have been settled, when you were a corporation, should be im- 
peached : that for the present, they may enjoy their estates with the 
same freedom and privilege, as they did, before the recalling of their 
patents : — to which purpose also, we do hereby authorize you, to dispose 
of such portions of lands to all those planters being freemen, as you had 
power to do before the year 1625." This shows, "that no invasion of 
any individual right of any Virginian was intended by Lord Baltimore's 
grant." Captain Claiborne and his islanders, as well as others, were 
thus informed, by these Commissioners, that they might still enjoy their 
estates, and that there was no intention that Lord Baltimore's patent 
should impeach their interests. They could not therefore but feel safe 
in their possessions. Backed then, as we have seen, by the Governor 

» 1 Hazzard, 345 ; t Bozman, 42, note. f 2 Bozman, 571. 



22 

and Council of Virginia, by the King's Privy Council, and his Commis- 
sioners also, can we wonder, that Captain Claiborne declined compliance 
with the intimation and claim of Lord Baltimore's Governor, Leonard 
Calvert ? 

Besides, not long after this, the date is not given, but circumstances 
show that it could not have been far from this time — as stated in Clai- 
borne's petition,* " his majesty was pleased to signify his royal pleasure, 
by letter, intimating, that it was contrary to justice and to the true intent 
of his majesty's grant to Lord Baltimore, [to dispossess them of Kent 
Island,] — that notwithstanding the said patent, the petitioners should 
have freedom. of trade, requiring the Governor and all others in Virginia 
to be aiding and assisting them, — prohibiting the Lord Baltimore, and 
all other pretenders under him, to oft'er them any violence, or to dis- 
turb or molest them in their (Kent Island) plantation." Bozman says 
" it is not to be doubted, but that a letter of that import, was signed by 
his majesty."! 

And yet, notwithstanding all this, in September of this very year, Lord 
Baltimore in England, issues orders to his Governor in Maryland, " that 
if Claiborne would not submit to his government, he should be seized 
and punished. "'I Yes, seized and punished, if he would not submit to his. 
Lord B's government! 

But with this the King's own declaration before him, that Lord Balti- 
more's claim was contrary to justice, and to the true intent of his, Lord 
B's patent; and the decisions of the Privy Council, and the Commis- 
sioners, and the Governor and Council of Virginia just mentioned, is it 
surprising, that Captain Claiborne should not submit? Besides, what 
was this order but a declaration of War ? And it^ was, as we shall 
presently see, not only against Capt. Claiborne, but it included also his 
Protestant settlement. It was not merely personal, it was a contest for 
the possession and government of Kent Island. Or is it surprising that 
such a declaration of hostility — showing Lord Baltimore to be his 
enemy — that Claiborne should be the enemy of Lord Baltimore ? 

"A historian of the Colony," says Dr. Hawks,§ "has not scrupled to 
call him — Claiborne — 'the bane of Maryland,' despising, in 1634, the 
authority of the infant settlement, because its power was less than its 
righty The historian mentioned was none other than Lord Baltimore 
himself, in a pamphlet of a few pages — and as to Lord Baltimore's power 
being less than his right, the reader can judge for himself. 

* 2 Bozman, 582. f 2 Bozman, 69, note. 

I 2 Bozman, 88. § Eccl. Contributions Md., 25. 



23 

In the carrying on of this contest, a circumstance is mentioned, which 
has called forth much condemnation of Claiborne. Bozmansays,* " that 
he made an ungenerous and cruel attempt to set the savages at war upon 
this infant colony," at St. Mary's, and places it after the failure, " to 
seize and punish him," and as it would seem near the end of the year, 
on the authority of the writers to whom he refers. Mr. B. U. Camp- 
bell, on the same authorities, places it in the early part of the following 
year. But Father White, in his narrative,f written before the expiration 
of one month from the landing at St. Mary's, speaks of it as having 
occurred before he wrote, and as the work of Capt. Fleet under Clai- 
borne's influence. " At the first, he, Captain Fleet, was very friendly to 
us. Afterwards, seduced by the evil counsels of a certain Claiborne, who 
entertained the most hostile disposition, he stirred up the minds of the 
natives against us, with all the art of which he was master." " We iiave 
been h(;re only one month."J Thus Father White, writing on the 
spot, and at the time, ascribes it to Captain Fleet, bringing in only Clai- 
borne's influence. Captain Fleet was indeed in the Colony. But Clai- 
borne was a hundred miles off". This Captain Fleet was an Indian 
trader from the Jamestown Colony,§ induced by Governor Calvert when 
there, to serve the Maryland Colony, by having a portion of the beaver 
trade, and was a Protestant. But clearly, in the estimation of Governor 
Calvert himself and the St. Marians, it was no great fault he had com- 
mitted, if even true, and was easily and fully forgiven, for he continued 
to reside in the Colony for some years. In the second year of the Colo 
ny, the Governor and Council had four thousand acres of land conveyed 
to him. I Four years after, 1638, he was a member of the Assembly,^ 
and licensed to trade with the Indians;** and in 1644, was appointed to 
go against the Indians with twenty men.ff 

We have said that the contest was not merely personal, between Lord 
Baltimore and Captain Claiborne. In a report of the Committee of the 
Navy to Parliament, dated Dec. 31st, 1652, it is stated, "that upon the 
arrival of Lord Baltimore's agent in Maryland, 1634, the Vir(jinians 
were prohibited from trading with the Indians, in any part of Maryland, 
to which formerly they had been accustomed."];]: This prohibition was 
unquestionably leveled against the Kent Islanders themselves, here called 
by high authority, Virginians. 

* 2 Bozman, 33. f P- ^0. % 2 Bozman. 24. § Streeter, 17. 

I Kilty, 64. T[ 2 Bozman, 55. **2 idem, 592. f f 2 idem, 276. 

'\"XX Virginia and Maryland, p. 21. 



24 



1635. 

From the narrative of Father White* and others, we learn, that witli 
the emigrants who came out this year, there was the addition of another 
priest to the number already in the Colony. The narrative remarks, that 
" from this Mission, which was but lately commenced, there has been as 
yet but small fruit, on account of the very many difficulties which occur 
in it, especially among the barbarians whose language is slowly acquired 
by our countrymen. Nothing in a manner can be written. There fire 
five members in it, three priests and two lay coadjutors, who, with much 
alacrity, sustain their present labors in hope of future success." Tims in 
a Colony, not all Roman Catholics, consisting of but little upward of three 
hundred, if so many, there was full provision for the religious oversight 
of the Romanists and a mission to the natives also. While, so far as the 
ministry was concerned, the Protestant portion of the Colony we're unpro- 
vided for. And we cannot but wonder somewhat, if Maryland was 
intended for an asylum for the oppressed Roman Catholics of England, 
why so many Protestant emigrants were brought into the Colony; and, 
not less, why so many being brought in, no Protestant Ministry was pro- 
vided to care for them. But they had, notwithstanding, their guides and 
helps, which their Romanist brethren had not. They had the Bible and 
the Book of Common Prayer, and that, too, in their own language ; and 
were themselves a part of that spiritual priesthood of which St. Peter 
speaks,f to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable lo God by Jesus Christ. 
As has been well remarked,^ " all the faithful, baptized into One Body 
and having drank of one Spirit, constitute that single Vine, that single 
Spouse, that single Church, which altogether each member discharging its 
own separate duty and ministry^ is sent into the world by Christ, even as 
He was sent by the Father." 

The Romanists had indeed their priests there, but their Bible and their 
Mass book, in which their prayers were, were in an unknown tongue, the 
Latin, or otherwise quite beyond their reach ; while the Protestants had 
their Bible and Prayer book in their own language, and could thereby 
search the Scriptures daily, as the noble Bereaus§ of old did, whether 
the things taught them, by those around them, were in truth taught 
there. It is a matter to be much regretted, that we have no more 
account of what was the condition of the Protestants, furnished us, as 

* p. 24. f 1 Ep. ii, 5, 9. 

\ Moberly's forty days, p. 79. § Acts xvii, 11. 



25 

that of the Romanists was, by a cotemporary writer of their own. As 
it is, we learn little about them except from incidental facts. The com- 
mercial spirit of individual Protestants of that day, seems to have been 
as absorbing, as it still is, so that the things of the kingdom of God were 
not sought first. Lord Baltimore could avail himself of them to swell 
the number of his Colonists and increase his revenue from their occupa- 
tion of his lands, but be could make no provision for their religious 
wants. He could care for his own — the Romanists, and for the poor 
Indian — but not for Protestants. 

For the Protestants of Kent Island, as we have seen, Captain Clai- 
borne did make provision. A Protestant Minister was there, and indeed 
more than one ; for among the depositions taken in Virginia, 1640, 
" allowances for Ministers," are testified to, among the expenses incurred 
by Captain Claiborne between the years 1631-1636 inclusive, on Kent 
Island. For this and other interesting facts, I am indebted to the kind- 
ness and personal examination of the Virginia Colonial Records, to S. F. 
Streeter, Esq., Baltimore. 

In the narrative of Father White,* one fact is mentioned, perhaps 
deserving of notice. It is this, "four servants that we bought for neces- 
sary use in Virginia." One of these was Francisco, a mulatto. For, in 
a memorandum recorded, p. 37, in the oldest land record book of the 
pi'ovince of Maryland, there is mention made, that " Francisco, a 
?nolaio, was brought in by Andrew White, in the year 1635," and right 
to land was therefore claimed.f This is the first notice on record, of the 
introduction of this race into the Province. This fact is mentioned in 
connection with the record, because the owner was entitled to one hundred 
acres of land, for bringing in a servant. Father White, therefore, must 
have the credit of introducing colored servants by purchase, into 
Maryland. 

But our attention is called here to the progress of the war between the 
government of St. Mary's and the Kent Islanders. It is stated,^ that 
early this year, Captain Claiborne granted a special warrant to Lieutenant 
Warren, to seize and capture any of the vessels belonging to the Gov- 
ernment or Colonists of St. Mary's ; and in pursuance thereof, an armed 
boat, belonging to Claiborne, was fitted out for this purpose and manned 
with about fourteen men. The authority for this statement is not given 
us by our author. Bearing in mind, however, that Claiborne's seizure 
and punishment had been ordered — and in his seizure, &c., that of his 

* p. 25. ^ r f 2 Bozman, 571. t 2 Bozman, 34. 



islanders — it will not appear astonishing that he should prepare to act on 
the defensive, or to make reprisals even, if found needful. Our author 
also states that the government of St. Mary's, 'probably apprized of 
Captain Claiborne's measures, equipped and armed two boats under the 
command of Captain Cornwallis, one of the Governor's assistnnts. In 
April, or May, these boats met Captain Claiborne's boat, in the Pokomoke 
River — where Captain Cornwallis had gone in pursuit — and the result 
was, that a battle ensued, in which one of Lord Baltimore's men was 
killed ; and Lieutenant Warren, and two others of Captain Claiborne's 
men, were also killed, and the rest of his men and his boat were taken. 
Thus it will be seen that the order to seize and punish Captain Claiborne, 
"was understood to include his Colonists, for Captain Claiborne himself 
was not there. 

Captain Claiborne, however, in his petition to the King, gives quite 
another version of the affair. And it is but right that he should have a 
hearing. He states there, and the statement he well knew would be 
denied and disproved too, if not true, that "his boats had gone with 
goods to purchase corn of the Indians, being utterly destitute of them- 
selves." It was in pursuance of this design, he says, that his boats went 
out. And it is notorious, that his boats and men were found by the 
enemy, not at Kent Island, nor near even to the St. Mary's Colony, but 
lower down, and on the opposite side of the Bay therefrom, some seventy 
miles distant, near the Pokomoke Indians, on the Pokomoke River, from 
whom corn was to be obtained in trade. And here it is admitted that 
Captain Claiborne's boat was found, on the 23d of April,* when the cap- 
ture took place. There was also another rencontre, in the same River, 
on the 10th of May, the particulars of which are not stated. 

Each party indeed claim, that the other fired first. But it certainly 
matters little which fires the first gun when a state of war exists. Either 
side may have fired first, and still have been acting only in defense. 
Captain Claiborne was at this time in Virginia, where it is claimed he 
had fled for refuge. But it seems unfortunate for this charge, that he 
was not a resident of Kent Island, but of Jamestown, where his duties as 
a member of the Council and Secretary of State, required him to be. 
He was no more a resident in his Colony, than Lord Baltimore was in his. 

Governor Calvert, however, sends Commissioners to the Governor of 
Virginia to reclaim him, as a criminal against the laws of Maryland ; 
and yet, singularly enough, not a single law had as yet been enacted in 

* Streeter. 



27 

Maryland. The only law was the order given by Lord Baltimore for 
Claiborne's "seizure and punishment." This was unquestionably presum- 
ing on Governor Harvey's friendship for Lord Baltimore and his opposi- 
tion to Captain Claiborne. But the Governor had just then been deposed 
by the people of Virginia, and sent to England. It is suflBcient, there- 
fore, to say, that they did not comply with Governor Calvert's demand. 
The demand, indeed, showed an unauthorized assumption of power. It 
had not yet been decided in England that Captain Claiborne or his Col- 
ony, were at all amenable to Lord Baltimore's jurisdiction. The Courts 
of law there, had not yet decided upon the validity, or invalidity, of their 
claim, while, as we have seen, the King, the Privy Council, the Commis- 
sioners of plantations, together with the Governor and Council of Vir- 
ginia, had, for the time being at least, sustained their claim. And it was 
in the face of all this, that war was made on the Kent Islanders — three 
men killed — eleven captured- -their goods and boat taken, and the pro- 
prietor himself claimed as a criminal ! Such was the war waged by the 
Roman Catholic Government of St. Mary's, against the Protestants of 
Kent Island. 

1636. 

We have very little bearing on the main point before us, the religious 
condition of Maryland, relating to this year. The narrative of Father 
White and others, shows us only, that another priest had been added to 
the number on the ground, that there was one temporal coadjutor less — 
but no letters are published as having been sent to the superiors. There 
were now thus four priests and one lay assistant. 

This year, we have nothing from Father White and those associated 
with him, unless what is stated above of last year belongs to this — which 
is doubtless the fact. For we learn from Mr. Campbell, on the Roman 
Catholic Missions, that a fourth priest arrived this year, known as ThomaS 
Copley, Esq. He says, that " in the oldest book in the land office,* I 
find the following entry : ' Thomas Copley, Esq., demandeth four thousand 
acres of land, due by conditions of plantation, for transporting into this 
province himself, and twenty able men at his own charge, to plant and 
inhabit in the year 1637.' ^It is no objection to his identity with the Mis- 
sionary of the same name, that the record calls him ' Esq.,' for it would 
not have been safe, at that period, to have openly recognized a Romish 

* L. I., fol. 25. 



28 

priest by the title of Hev. ; and in the State records, we find a prudent 
caution in this respect to any apparent disregard of the penal laws, then 
In force in the mother country against Romish priests, and Jesuits 
in particular."—" A. proof that Mr. Copley was a Jesuit priest, and en- 
gaged in Missionary duty in Maryland, is found in an original letter," 
in which " he is called Father Copley." Touching this same individual, 
we find in Kilty's Landholder's Assistant, this extract from the same 
records : " Came into this province the 8th of August, 1637, Mr. Thomas 
Copley and Mr. John Knowles, who transported R. H., L. G., W. K., 
&c. — and p. 86 — to the number of nineteen." Just before this, is the fol- 
lowing entry : " Entered by Mr. Copley — brought into this province, in the 
year 1633, O. S., Mr. Andrew White, Mr. John Altham, &c., Thomas 
H., &c , &c., to the number of thirty." He seems thus to have been 
the agent in procuring the first Colonists that came over in 1634, as well 
as those of the present year, and also in securing their lands, as promised 
*^ to emigrants. And thus the priests secured their portions of lands, not 
' J.ess than did the other settlers ; _jands which, it is understood, went to 
the Roman Catholic Church itself by the very vows of this priestly Order. 
This Thomas Copley, Esq., does not appear to have been known however 
to the Protestants, in his real character of a Jesuit Father. 

From the entries made in the land records, we are shown that there 
were many Colonists who came over this year. 

In the spring or fall of this year, it appears that Capt. Claiborne 
repaired to England. Previously to this, there is no proof that he was 
there, after he came into the Colony. And either by himself, or his 
agents, such representations had been made to the King, as called forth 
from him the following order* to Lord Baltimore : 

" Whereas formerly, by our royal letters to the Governor and Council 
of Virginia, and to others, our officers and subjects in those parts, we 
signified our pleasure that William Claiborne, David Morehead and other 
planters, in the Island near Virginia, which they have nominated Kent 
Island, should in no sort he interrupted in their trade or plantation by 
you, or any other on your right, but rather he encouraged to proceed 
cheerfully in so good a work, we do now understand, that though your 
agents had notice of our said pleasure, signified by our letters, yet con- 
trary thereto, they have slain three of our subjects there, and by force, 
possessed themselves by right of that Island, and carried away both the 
persons and estates of said planters. Now, out of our royal care to pre- 

* 2 Bozman, 685. 



29 

vent such disorders, as we have referred to our Comrnissioners of Plan- 
tations the examination of the truth of these complaints, and require 
them to proceed therein according to justice, so, now, by these particular 
letters to )'0urself, we strictly require and command you, to perform what 
our general letter did enjoin, and that the above named planters and 
their agents may enjoy, in the meantime, their possessions and he safe in 
their persons and goods there, without disturbance or further trouble by 
you, or any of yours, till that cause be decided. And herein we expect 
your ready conformity that we may have no cause of any further mis- 
like." Dated July 14th, 1638, in the copy, but should be 1637, as is 
proved by other documents. 

" Lord Baltimore on receiving the order, with an attention which," 
says Chalmers,* " he deemed due to the command of his Prince, though 
founded on misinformation, said that he would wait on the King and 
give him perfect satisfaction !" What satisfaction he gave him is not 
known — but such was the King's order to him. He was required and 
commanded, that the Protestants of Kent Island enjoy their possessions, 
and be safe in their persons and goods, without any further disturbance. 

What misinformation was given by Captain Claiborne, as alleged by 
Lord Baltimore, we are not informed. But that he had indeed possessed 
himself of the goods and estates of some of the Kent Islanders, the Vir- 
ginia and English records furnish full proof. The Rev. Richard James, 
as before stated, was a resident clergyman on Kent Island, for some years 
up to the present. This gentleman, it appears, had previously been 
librarian to Sir Robert Cotton, the famous antiquarian ; and when Sir 
George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, obtained as a Protestant his 
charter of Avalon, in the Island of Newfoundland, and took his Protest- 
ant Colony thither, he was the Minister there. We next find him 
as above stated, the Minister of Kent Island. In this year, he seems to 
have accompanied Captain Claiborne to England, and to have died at Sir 
Robert Cotton's in 1638.f On Captain Claiborne's return to Virginia, 
he administered on the Rev. Mr. James' estate, and August 1st, 1640, is 
found this record : " Captain Claiborne, administrator of Richard James, 
Minister, brought into Court at James' City, his inventory and account. 
He alleged, that the Governor of Maryland had seized on the greater 
part of the estate of Mr. James, and detained it from him, Claiborne." 
He therefore asked to be discharged, which was granted; J so, also, in 



* -2 Bozman, 72. f Wood's Atheniensis, <fec. 

^Streeter, from Virginia and English records and depositions. 



30 

another record, December 30lb, IGSY, the cattle of Gertrude James were 
seized by a writ from St. Mary's. This, it is apprehended, is proof, that 
the Roman Catholic Government of St. Mary's, did possess itself of the 
goods and estate of at least one Kent Islander, and that one, the Protest- 
ant clergyman of the Island, or rather his widow ! 

And now, how went on matters at Kent Island, subsequently to the 
disaster on the Pokomoke bay, in the spring of 1635 ? Did the Protest- 
ants there, at once submit to Lord Baltimore's government upon the 
defeat and capture of their men and boats, when one-seventh of their 
Colony were killed and taken ? Very far otherwise. The remainder of 
the year 1635 passes away — all of '36 and all of '37, to its very last day,* 
when we find, that the Isle of Kent had been only in some measure 
reduced to the obedience of Lord Baltimore, and George Evelyn, a 
Roman Catholic, the owner of the barony of Eylinton, St. Mary's, was 
appointed commander of the Island, and John Langford, another Roman 
Catholic, high sherifFf then, or soon after. Thus, though deprived now 
of the superintendence of their proprietary, and so long before of one- 
seventh of their most valiant men, yet, now, at the end of near three 
years, they were only in some measure reduced to Lord Baltimore's gov- 
ernment. 

1638. 

Although Kent Island had been thus partially subjected to Lord Bal- 
timore's Roman Catholic Government, during the latter part of the last 
year, yet the Colonists there were so far from being quiet, or submissive 
to his Lordship's government,;]; that there were insolences and mutinies 
and contempts of the government of the province there. Governor Cal- 
vert, therefore, himself, had to proceed with a military force, to reduce 
the Colonists there to his government, which, it appears, he accomplished 
in the month of March. And all this, notwithstanding the King's order 
of the previous July to Lord Baltimore ; and the more easily, as Captain 
Claiborne was now in England, so that the Kent Islanders were deprived 
of his aid. 

Previous to this, on the 25th of January, commenced the second 
General Assembly held at St. Mary's, nearly four years from its first settle- 
ment.§ It was composed of the Governor and his Council ; such indi- 
viduals as the Governor specially summoned, and burgesses or represen- 
tatives of those not personally summoned, together with every freeman 

* 2 Bozman, 44. f Ibid, 61. X I^id, 62. § Ibid, 49. 



31 

who had not voted for a burgess. Each member bad his own vote, and 
as many more as had been given him by proxy, of freemen not present. 
The number of members present, before its final adjournment, appear to 
have been seventeen, giving and representing fifty-six votes. Among 
those present, were the Commandant and High Sherifl" of Kent Island, 
and Robert Philpott, gentleman, of the same Island. Capt. Henry Fleet 
and some other Protestants were also members. Those who were person- 
ally summoned, were Thomas Copley, Esq,, and Fathers White and 
Altham, the three Jesuit Priests before mentioned. But Mr. Campbell 
tells us, that they desired to be excused. 

To this Assembly was submitted the laws transmitted to the Colony 
by Lord Baltimore, and they were rejected, the Governor and Secretary 
having fourteen votes only, voting in their favor. The Assembly, after 
some other business, adjourned to the 8th of February. The Assembly 
met at the time appointed, and again rejected Lord Baltimore's laws, and 
soon adjourned to the 26th. But the Governor, not returning from his 
expedition to Kent Island, above spoken of, the Assembly did not meet 
until the 12th of March, when seventeen bills, presented by a Committeet 
were passed. 

Bozman says,* did the duty of an historian allow him to mention his 
conjecture, a plausible supposition may be made, that the dispute about 
the reception of these laws, was dictated more by a political contest for 
the right of propounding laws to be enacted by the Assembly, than any 
other cause." Previous to this, by three years, it is said, an Assembly had 
met February, 1635, and passed some Acts which were sent to Lord 
Baltimore for his concurrence, which he had rejected. And now the 
laws originated and sent over by Lord Baltimore, vrere rejected by the 
Assembly. But that the contest was about the right of originating and 
propounding laws, is admitted to be only " a plausable supposition ;" 
and granting it, may it not be an equally plausable supposition, that the 
exercise of this right had something to do with Romanism and Protest- 
antism ? He who knows anything of the state of things in England at 
that time, may readily indeed so suppose. And the popular influence of 
Protestantism in the Colony, was not small. Captain Fleet, a member 
of the Assembly, was a known Protestant, as well as others ; and Captain 
Cornwallis, so tradition reports, was also one, either at that time, or not 
long after. And he was cleariy, the most popular man in the Assembly, 
receiving ten more votes, when the appointment of a Committee was 
made, than any other member. 

f 2 Bozman, 66. 



32 

The most peculiar Act of this body, was a Bill for the attainder of 
" William Claiborne, gentleman,"* He not being taken, and being 
absent from the country, was proceeded against in this way, and by this 
Bill his property in Kent Island was forfeited to Lord Baltimore. Upon 
the adjournment of the Assembly, on the 14th of March, it constituted 
itself into a Court of Justice, and Thomas Smith, the second in com- 
mand at the battle on the Pokomoke, three years previous, was called to 
the bar for felony and piracy, and condemned, and thus sentenced : 
" You shall be carried from hence, to the place from whence you came, 
and thence to the place of execution, and shall be there hanged by ihe 
neck until you be dead ; and that all your lands, goods and chattels, 
shall be forfeited to the Lord proprietary," &c. And this sentence was 
executed. 

And by whom was this done ? In part by the very men who had 
fought against him in the battle, and killed his commander by his side, 
and three of his men. They were the witnesses before the Grand Jury, 
and consenting Judges in his condemnation ; and who were themselves 
deserving of the same condemnation, if Smith himself was not deserving 
it. At this, who can help being astonished, when as yet, the Courts in 
England had not decided on the injustice of Captain Claiborne's Virginia 
claim, when the Privy Council and the Board of Commissioners, had 
given the decision which they had, and when only on the July previous, 
the King had strictly required and commanded Lord Baltimore and his 
agents in Maryland, that the Kent Islanders should enjoy their posses- 
sions, and be safe in their persons and goods! Verily this was taking 
law and vengeance into their own hands ! 

But it must be remembered, that at this period, feudal tenures were 
not entirely abolished ; and that the dependents of a Lord were accus- 
tomed to range themselves on his side, and act in his defense, leaving to 
him the matter of settling the right or wrong of the case; and in this 
view of it, the responsibility rested on Lord Baltimore himself, his Colo- 
nists being his agents simply. 

On the 26th of February, the King laid before the Commissioners for 
Plantations, the following petition from William Claiborne and his part- 
nersf — he being then in England where he had voluntarily gone, as has 
been stated, sometime durin,;- the previous year. The date of the peti- 
tion is not given. He shows : " that the petitioners, by virtue of a com- 
mission under his Majesty's hand, &c., divers years past, discovered and 



» 2 Bozman, 64. f 2 Bozman, 682. 



33 

did then plant upon an Island in the great Bay of Chesapeake, in Vir- 
ginia, by them named the Isle of Kent, which they bought of the Kings 
of the country, and built houses, transported cattle, and settled people 
thereon, to their very great costs and charges ; which the Lord Baltimore 
taking notice thereof, and the great hopes for trade of beavers and other 
commodities, like to ensue by the petitioner's discoveries, hath since 
obtained a patent from your Majesty, comprehending said Island within 
the limits thereof, and sought thereby to dispossess the petitioners there- 
of, and debar them of their discovery, &c. Complaint thereof being 
made, your Majesty was pleased to signify your royal pleasure by letter, 
intimating, that it was contrary to justice, and the true intent of your 
Majesty's grant to the said Lord Baltimore — that notwithstanding the 
said patent, the petitioners should have freedom of trade, requiring the 
Governor, and all others in Virginia, to be aiding and assisting unto 
them, prohibiting the Lord Baltimore and all other pretenders under him, 
to offer them any violence, or to disturb or molest them in their planta- 
tion, as by your Majesty's letter annexed, appeareth. Since which, 
albeit, your Majesty's royal pleasure hath been made known to Sir John 
Harvey, Governor of Virginia, (who slighted the same,) as also to Lord 
Baltimore and his agents there, yet they have, in a most willful and con- 
temptuous manner, disobeyed the same, and violently set upon your peti- 
tioners' pinnaces and boats, having goods to trade, and seized them, and 
do still detain the same, by the loss of which pinnaces and goods, the 
inhabitants within the said Isle, were in so great famine and misery, as 
they became utterly destitute of any corn to sustain themselves ; which 
enforced them to send a small boat to know why they obeyed not your 
Majesty's said royal letter and commands, ****** the 
said pinnace and goods to enable them to trade for Corn* * * * 
which boat, approaching near unto some vessel of the said Lord Balti- 
more's, or his agents, they shot among the petitioners' men, and slew 
three of them and took eleven more ; and not content with these great 
injuries, the said Lord Baltimore and his agents, have openly defamed 

and unjustly accused the petitioners, of crimes to his exceeding 

great grief, which hath caused him purposely to repair into this King- 
dom, and humbly prostrate himself and his cause at his Majesty's feet, 
to be relieved therein." 

The rest of the petition relates to other matters — making proposals for 
a new grant and commission. And what is the record of the Privy 
Council at the same date when the petition was referred ? It is in part 

* Blanks in the record. 
3 



34 

this — " His Majesty approving the proposals made in this petition, for 
the advancement of those plantations, [Kent Island and Palmer's Isl- 
and,] &c., is graciously pleased to confirm what was contained in his 
former commission and letter, under the broad seal," and directs the 
Commissioners of plantations " to settle such a grant of the things here- 
in desired, as they shall think fit to be prepared by him [the Attorney] 
for his Majesty's signature. Their Lordships are also to examine the 
wrongs complained of, and certify to his Majesty what they think fit to 
be done for the redress hereof." Signed by the Secretary, <fec. 

On the 4th of April, the Lord's Commissioners having heard the case, 
decided, " that the right and title to the Isle of Kent and other places in 
question, to be absolutely belonging to Lord Baltimore; and that no 
plantation or trade with the Indians ought to be within the precints of 
his patent without leave from him. And concerning the violences and 
wrongs by the said Claiborne and others complained of," they left " both 
sides to the ordinary course of justice." 

They said, that Claiborne confessed the Isle of Kent to be within the 
bounds and limits of Lord Baltimore's patent ; and so it was. They also 
said, that Claiborne's Commission, referring to the license of 1631, was 
onlv a license to trade with the Indians, under the signet of Scotland — 
not under the broad seal ; which did not extend, nor give warrant to 
Claiborne or any other — nor had they any right or title thereby to the 
Isle of Kent, or to plant or trade there. This discovery of Claiborne's 
license being signed by only the Signet of Scotland, instead of the broad 
seal of England, shows that gross imposition had been practiced upon 
him. Kilty, in his Landholder's Assistant,* says, judging from what 
appears on record, "I consider him as a man trifled with by the 
Crown, for the traffic in his license being that of furs, &c., with the 
Datives, could not well be carried on without settlements. Being turned 
over and subjected to Lord Baltimore, without any compensation for his 
disappointment, he had all the excuse that can arise from high provoca- 
tion, for bis subsequent procedures." 

The claim of Captain Claiborne, on the ground of prior occupancy, 
does not seem by the Commissioners to have been thought worth 
noticing; for they passed it by without any reference to it. And yet on 
this very ground, under the claim of the Penns, of Pennsylvania, in a 
subsequent year, 1685, all that is now Delaware, being one million two 
hundred and sixty-seven thousand two hundred acres.f within the bounda- 



* Page 17. t Scott'a Geog. Del. 



35 

ries of Lord Baltimore's patent, was taken from him and given to them, 
by the decision of the Privy Council. And it does not appear that the 
claim of prior occupancy was even as good as was that of the Virginians 
to Kent Island.* Either the one or the other decision, therefore, was 
clearly wrong. And if the first decision was not right, does not the 
latter look something like retributive justice? For, though by gaining 
his case in the first instance, he gained thirty-nine thousand acres, yet in 
losing it in the other, by the Penns, he lost, as just stated, one million 
two hundred and sixty-seven thousand two hundred acres. There was 
a power behind the throne greater than the throne. 

It has been said,f that " Lord Baltimore's motives were purely political 
and reliffious" while " Claiborne's was founded on private self-interest, 
though plausibly holding out, at the same time, the possibility of imme- 
diate commercial advantages to the nation or its monarch." That the 
motives of the Secretary of Virginia were founded on private self-inter- 
est, need not be denied ; and yet the annual rent which he imposed on 
his Colonists amounted, in each case, to only two capons; said, then, to be 
equal to sixteen pounds of tobacco, or one bushel of wheat, or two 
shillings ; which allowing the entire Island to have been divided into 
farms of fifty acres each, and taken up, would give him only seventy- 
eight pounds sterling a year. 

But was there no private self-interest in Lord Baltimore's case ? By 
his terms of plantation of 1636, every first adventurer in 1634, for every 
five men between sixteen and fifty years of age, which he brought over, 
received two thousand acres, subject to a yearly rent of four hundred 
pounds of wheat, or one pound to every five acres. To every one with- 
in that year, 1636, bringing out less than five men, one hundred acres 
for himself, one hundred for his wife and every servant ; and for every 
child, under sixteen years of age, fifty acres, subject to an annual rent of 
ten pounds of wheat for every fifty acres, or, as before, one pound to 
every five acres.J The terms of plantation, however, were subsequently 
changed. But what would the annual income be at this rate, were all 
Lord Baltimore's lands taken up? V7hy, £1,l6l, or about 134,000. 
And this sum is even actually less than his annual rents are stated to 
have been in lYYO, by a thousand dollars. This certainly was moderate 
enough. And the amount said to have been expended by him, could 
have doubtless been better invested. But the Government of the Colony 
was paid for by the Colonists, and some of the members of the family 

* 1 McMahon, 32. f 2 Bozman, 71. X Ibid, 36. 



36 

were provided with places in that Government. Besides, there was the 
honor of being proprietor of such wide lands, and having so many ten- 
ants. It told large. No other individual in England could boast of any- 
thing like such domains. If this view indicates, as it so clearly does, 
some regard to self interest, other facts unquestionably confirm it. The 
Colonial Assembly's letter to Lord Baltimore in 1649,* for instance, will 
show somewhat how intent he was upon this matter of property. The 
stock on his plantation in the Colony had been pledged by Governor 
Calvert, his brother, to pay the soldiers employed by him — to regain the 
province from the usurpation of Ingle and others ; and he finds such 
fault with the pledge having been fulfilled, that the Assembly say to him, 
" We much wonder that your honor should consider^ or thmk much, 
that a few cattle, not above eleven or twelve cows at most, of your lord- 
ship's known clear stock, and those conquered again to your lordship, and 
taken from the unlawful possessor, should be distributed among those 
men who had ventured and hazzarded their fortunes, lives and estates, in 
the defense, recovery and preservation of your lordship's province;" and 
much more to the same purpose. 

But Lord Baltimore's " motives were purely political and religious" ! 
Passing those merely political, whatever the first Lord Baltimore's 
motives were, who negotiated the charter, the second Lord Baltimore, to 
whom it was actually given, certainly found England so safe and pleasant 
a place of residence, that he never came over to his Maryland Colony. 
And just as certainly he did not seek to make his province an exclusive 
asylum for his Roman Catholic brethren. Witness the fact of so large 
a portion of the first Colonists being Protestants ; his invitation to 
Captain Fleet ; his invitation to the Puritan Colonists of Massachusetts 
to come and reside in the Colony in 1643 ;f his constituting Colonel 
Stone his Governor in 1648, who was a Protestant, and was to bring in 
five hundred Colonists ; his admitting the Puritans of Virginia in the 
same year ; and in the year following creating a new County for Robert 
Brooke, a Pu; itan, and his Colonists. This shows, beyond question, that 
he was more solicitous to settle his lands, and thus secure some income 
from them, than he was to render his province a religious asylum for his 
brethren of his own faith. But we pass on. 

In July of this year, 1638, occurred a well known incident to every 
reader of Maryland history, which shows something of the religious con- 

* 2 Bozman, 666. f Hawks' Maryland, 30. 



37 

dition of the St. Mary's Colonists * Captain Cornwallis, a member of 
the Council, had some servants so called, white men they were, who, as 
the custom then was, had sold themselves to him for a terra of years, to 
pay for their passage across the ocean, who were Protestants. They 
were residents in the same house with William Lewis, a zealous Roman 
Catholic, who had them in charge. Among them were Francis Gray and 
Robert Sedgrave. They were one day reading Smith's Sermons, and 
reading aloud, where he remarks, " that the Pope is anti-Christ — the 
Jesuits anti- Christian Ministers," &c. Lewis told them, " that it was a 
falsehood, and came from the devil, as all lies did, and that he that writ 
it was an instrument of the devil, and he would prove it, and that all 
Protestant Ministers were of the devil," and forbade them reading any 
more. 

Soon after, Sedgrave, at the request of Gray, drew up the following 
petition, to be signed by the Protestants on the next Sunday at the 
Chapel, which petition, Lewis said, was to be presented to Governor Har- 
vey, of Virginia; but the others said it was for the Governor and Coun- 
cil of the Province. 

" Christopher Carroll, Ellis Beache, R'd. Sedgrave, and others, which 
may hereafter be brought forth : Beloved in the Lord, (fee. — this is to 
give you notice, of the abuses and scandalous reproaches which God and 
his ministers do daily suffer, by William Lewis, of St. Tnigoes ; who 
saith, that our Ministers are Ministers of the devil, and that our books 

are made by the instruments of the devil, and further saith, that f 

who are under his charge, shall keep nor read any books which doth 
appertain to our religion, within the house of the said William Lewis, 
to the great discomfort of those poor bondmen, who are under his sub- 
jection, especially, in this heathen country, where no godly Minister is, 
to teach and instruct ignorant people in the grounds of religion. And 

as for people who unto the said Lewis, or otherwise, to pass the 

week, the said Lewis takes occasion to call them into his chambers and 
there laboreth with all vehemence, craft, and subtility, to delude ignorant 
persons. Therefore we beseech you, brethren, in the Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ, that you who have the power, that you will do what lieth 

in you to have these absurd and ridiculous to be reclaimed, and 

that God and his Ministers may not be so grievously trodden down by 
such ignominious speeches : and no doubt but you, or they, who strive 
to uphold God's Ministers and word, all be crowned with eternal 

* 2 Bozman, 596, from the proceedings of the Governor and Conncil. 
\ Blanks in the record. 



38 

joy and felicity, to reign in that eternal kingdom with Jesus Christ, 
under whose banner we fight ever more." 

Both of the parties were summoned before the Governor and Council, 
and witnesses were examined. Lewis was found " guilty of an offensive 
and indiscreet speech, in calling the author of the book an instrument of 
the devil — and of a very offensive speech, in calling Protestant Ministers' 
the Ministers of the devil, and to have exceeded in forbidding them to 
read a hook, allowed and lawful to be read by the state of England, and 
because that these offensive speeches, and other of his unreasonable dis- 
putations in point of religion, tended to the disturbance of the public 
peace and quiet of the Colony, and were committed by him against a pub- 
lic proclamation set forth to prohibit all such disputes," or, as stated by 
Captain Cornwallis, made "for the suppressing all further disputes tend- 
ing to the opening of a faction in religion." Therefore he was fined 500 
lbs. of tobacco to the Lord of the Province, and was bound over to good 
behavior, giving security therefor, in 3,000 pounds of tobacco. 

The Smith, whose Sermons are here spoken of, was Henrie Smith.* 
He was a member of Lincoln College in 1575, and "esteemed the 
miracle and wonder of his age, for his prodigious memory, and for his 
fluent, eloquent, and practical way of preaching." He took his degree in 
1583, and "was lecturer of St. Clement Danes, without the Temple Bar, 
near London, which was much frequented by the puritanical party. He 
was in very great renown among men in 1593, in which year he died, 
aet 34." 

The volume of Sermons from which those servants were reading, it is 
presumed, was a fac simile of the copy now before us.f It is an 18mo. 
of upwards of a thousand pages, just such a volume as we might natu- 
rally suppose would find its way into an emigrant's chest. The Sermons 
are such as we might expect from such an one as described by Woods, 
and answers well to the character of the times. In a sermon from Job 
i, 7, which, as given in the old translation then in use, reads thus : 
"Then the Lord said unto Satan, whence comest thou? And Satan 
answered the Lord, saying — from compassing the earth to and fro, and 
from walking up and down in it." In the sermon, there is found the 
following passage, and was doubtless the very one which the servants 
were then reading, as it is the only one in the volume which answers the 
allegation of Lewis. " As the serpent corapasseth, so does his seed — and 
therefore doth Solomon call the ways of the wicked, crooked ways. 

* Wood's Athenae Oxonienses. f Ex libris, Bishop Whitiugham. 



39 

This is the great compasser. There be little compassers beside, like the 
Pharisees, of whom it is said, that they compass sea and land lo make 
one like themselves. Instead of these compassers, we have Seminary 
priests which compass from Rome to Tyburn, to draw one from Christ to 
anti-Christ. I will not name all compassers, lest I be compassed 
myself; but this I speak within compass, that there is a craft in compass- 
ing, and Satan is the craftiest Master, and the rest are his prentices or 
factors under him." The first Sermon in the volume was printed in 
1.592, and stated to be printed after the author's death. Woods, conse- 
quently, must be wrong by a year, in the date which he assigns for 
his death. 

There are various facts which this petition and trial present worthy of 
notice. One is, that there were a number of Protestant men in the St. 
Mary's Colony. Four are mentioned in connection with the petition, and 
others on the trial ; tbat the Protestants had a chapel, and consequently 
were so numerous as to require one ; that there whs, notwithstanding 
their number, no Protestant Clergyman in the Colony, though worship 
was kept up by them, they being accustomed to meet in their chapel ; 
and that these Protestants could write as well as read, and write to some 
purpose. The tone and wording of the petition shows them to be Puri- 
tanic ; and this is confirmed by the very volume they read from in Lewis' 
house ; true Church of England men had little sympathy with such 
authors in that day. Besides, while there was a common sympathy 
between the Roman Catholics and Puritans, they being alike oppressed 
and persecuted under the laws of that period, there was the most entire 
antipathy between them and the Church of England men. And this 
shows us, why all in the St. Mary's Colony so readily ranged themselves 
under Lord Baltimore's banners, against the Church of England men of 
Kent Island. The Puritans disliked the Churchmen not less than they 
did the Romanists. 

We are told, indeed, that then and there, Roman Catholics and 
Protestants " lived in harmony."* But the facts elicited in this trial 
show us otherwise. We are shown here that there were offensive 
speeches and unreasonable disputations on religion, which tended to fac- 
tion, to the disturbance of the public peace and quiet of the Colony ; 
and that they were carried to such an extent that the Governor found 
himself obliged to issue a public proclamation to prevent them ; and that 
men were fined and bound under heavy penalties to keep the peace for 

* Hawks, 30. 



40 

its open violation. Their living in harmony is a fancy picture. Would 
that it had been a true delineation. 

We are shown here, also, that some at least of the Romanists were 
most earnest in their proselyting eflforts. We shall see more of it as we 
proceed further, and the exasperation which it caused, and at the same 
time, how firmly these Protestants, without a shepherd, stood their 
ground. And one thing more. We are shown that the Governor and 
his assistants were prompt in sustaining the rights and privileges of the 
Protestants, as secured by the Charter, to which attention has been 
called. In their decision, they state incidentally, the very ground on 
which they acted — "the book was allowed and lawful to be read in the 
State of England." And by the Charter, they were not allowed to make 
any laws, repugnant or contrary to the laws, statutes, customs, and 
rights of the kingdom of England,* and consequently no judicial de- 
cisions. 

The settling of the case was unquestionably creditable and honorable 
to them. But it must not be forgotten, that under the Charter they 
could not do otherwise. Besides, the Roman Catholics were a small 
minority in England, prescribed and excluded from office, and from 
many of the civil rights. The King was Protestant; and the Parlia- 
ment was more Protestant than the King. The Romanists durst scarce 
lift up their heads — they were obliged to be submissively quiet. And 
in this colony. — while just across the Potomac was the rigidly Protestant 
colony of Virginia, ready always to act in defense of Protestantism, — the 
settlement on Kent Island vpas Protestant, and it is by no means certain 
that putting the Protestants of the Island and St. Mary's together, they 
did not at that very time, constitute a majority even in Maryland. 

Mr. Bozraanf estimates the population of St. Mary's at this time, to be 
about three hundred. There was however a considerable accession this 
year, by an arrival from abroad. Among the number was a Jesuit Priest, 
Father Pulton, and a lay coadjutor, Wm. Morley. But John Knowles, 
the coadjutor before spoken of, died, and also one of the priests, whose 
name is not known, a young man, said to be of great promise, who had 
been in the colony but two months. Nor did the other priests escape 
sickness. But no other died, and so the number continued as before. In 
the narrative of Father White and others,^ they .say, " we have not ceased_ 
in an active manner, to exert our endeavors for our neighbors, [the In- 
dians,] although it is not permitted us, by the rules of the province, to 

* Charter, Sec. 7. \ 1 Bozman, 88. % P- 25. 



41 

live among the barbarians, both on account of the prevailing sickness, 
and the hostile acts which they commit. In the interim, we are more 
earnestly intent on the English. And since there are Protestants as well 
as Catholics in the colony, we have labored with both, and God has 
blessed our labors. For of the Protestants who came from England this 
year, almost all have been converted to the faith, besides many others, 
with four servants that we bought for necessary use in Virginia. And of 
five workmen, whom we hired for a month, we have in the mean time 
gained two." They were thus on their own showing, in proselyting in- 
defatigable. But no station had yet, on this fifth year of the colony, been 
established among the Indians. 

As illustrating something of the way in which some of the proselytes 
were gained, we may take the following in the narrative of this same 
year. " A certain one altogether unknown to us, but zealous in the re- 
ligion of the Protestants, and staying with a host more fervent than him- 
self, having been bitten by a snake, expected death every instant. One 
of our people understanding this, having taken a surgeon with him to 
the sick man, who was now said to be deprived of his senses, was anx- 
ious for his soul, that he might in a measure heal it also. But his host 
perceiving the thing, interrupted his pious endeavors. And when the 
priest could think of no other opportunity, he resolved to spend the 
night with the sick man. But the host then threw an impediment in 
the way of this also, and lest by night access might be granted to the 
priest, he set a watch who would sleep in a bed opposite to the door of 
the chamber. Nevertheless, the priest taking advantage of every means, 
at an unseasonable hour of the night, when he supposed the guard most 
oppressed with sleep, without his being aroused, found a way of entrance 
to the sick man, and admitted him into the Church as he desired it." 
The sleepless efforts to proselyte the neglected Protestants, who were 
kept without a shepherd, could hardly be better illustrated — " of this 
sort are they which creep into houses."* 

1639. 

Mr. Bozman estimates, from data which he gives, that the population 
of Kent Island at this time, was about one hundred and twenty ,f and 
that of the St. Mary's Colony, to be about three hundred, though there 
were not more than two or three wealthy persons among them.J 

On the 25th of February, another General Assembly commenced its 
sessions. 



* 2,Tira. 3:6. t 2 Bo2man, 100. X 2 Ibid, 156. 



42 

The only thing done now, which particularly concerns the view we 
are taking of Maryland, is the Act which was passed " for Church liber- 
ties." It was re-enacted the next year, and in 1 676, made a perpetual law. 
It enacts, " that Holy Church within this province, shall have and enjoy 
all her rights, liberties and franchises, wholly and without blemish ;"* 
using thus, the very terms of the 10th section of the Charter, and show- 
ing our construction of it to be true. But what meant the words " Holy 
Church ?" If they are to be construed under the construction of the 7th, 
10th and 2 2d sections of the Charter, they must mean the then estab- 
lished Church of England. But this is not probable, the Lord proprietor 
being a Romanist, and also his Governor and so large a part of his col- 
onists. And that they intended the Roman Catholic Church seems just 
as little probable, in view of the condition of the Romanists, and with 
the charter hanging over them. Chalmers does not therefore seem very 
far in the wrong when he says,f that " it would have puzzled the wisest 
doctors of the Church of Maryland in that day, to have told what her 
franchises were," or what Holy Church in that connection might mean- 
It cannot be conceded, then, that the remark of Chalmers is a "con- 
temptuous sneer."J It may not however be much in the wrong, to ad- 
mit that the Act might be made to mean, whatever present circumstances 
might require that it should mean. 

In the sixth year of the St. Mary's Colony, the Jesuit Fathers had ex- 
tended themselves throughout a large portion of the province. The 
narrative so often referred to states, that the number of the missionaries 
remained the same as the last year, but were located on places widely 
distant. Father John Brock, the Superior, with a coadjutor, remained 
in Metapawnian, which was given by Macquacoraen, the king of Patux- 
ent, and was the storehouse of the mission. Father Philip Fisher was at 
St. Mary's Father John Gravener, alias Altham, was stationed at Kent 
Island, which, says the narrative, was sixty miles distant ; and Father 
White was at Kittamaquenda, the metropolis ofPiscatoe, with the King, 
Tayac — one hundred and twent)'^ miles distant. B. U. Campbell says^ 
that Father Brock's real name was Morgan, and that his station was 
near the mouth of the Patuxent, upon the land which had been given 
to the missionaries by the Indians, and was called Mattapani. It was 
afterwards, he says, relinquished to Lord Baltimore, and was the place 
where he built his mansion. This relinquishment, it may be remarked, 
was compulsory. Whatever may have been the motive for so doing, at 



* Bacon, 1640, Chap. 1. f 2 Chalmers, 213. X 2 Bozman, 107. 



43 

the session of the Assembly of this year, it was enacted, in a bill "for 
maintaining the Lord proprietaries title," &c., that " no subject of his 
Majesty, the King of England, or of any other foreign prince or state, 
shall obtain, procure, or accept of any land within this province, from any 
Indian to his own, or the use of any other than of the Lord proprietary, 
or his heirs, nor shall hold or possess any land within this province by 
virtue of such grant, upon pain that every person contrary hereof, shall 
forfeit and lose to the Lord proprietary and his heirs all such lands so 
accepted or held, without grant of the Lord proprietary or under him."* 
This was in accordance with an old English Statute, which provided, 
" that no religious community should, by gift or otherwise, obtain or 
hold landed property without the consent of the civil authorities."! In 
disregard of this, the missionaries had accepted from the king of the 
Patuxents, a large tract of land, the plantation above alluded to. The 
Act of the Assembly just met this case ; and Lord Baltimore therein 
asserted his supremacy over the Church in the colony. He thus came 
into collision with the missionaries, and their plantation was forfeited to 
him. He had in a previous year, as we have seen, kept them in the 
colony, and thereby from establishing missions out among the Indians at 
a distance. But these acts were unquestionably in antagonism with his 
Church, and rendered him liable to excommunication. In the bull " in 
coena Domini,''^ the Pope asserts full supremacy over all powers and 
persons, temporal and ecclesiastical, and forbids all persons whatsoever, 
directly or indirectly, to violate, depress, or restrain the ecclesiastical lib- 
erties or rights of the apostolic See and Church of Rome, howsoever and 
whomsoever obtained, under pain of excommunication," &c. But to 
return — Mr. Campbell tells us that " Father Altham was stationed at 
Kent Island. He is of course the same, in the narrative called Gravener, 
so that he too had two names. The narrative states that twelve Prot- 
estants returned to Roman Catholic Church this year. The Kent Island 
Church of England Colony, it will be seen, had now not only a Roman 
Catholic Government, but a Jesuit priest stationed among them. And 
if Indians were not converted to the faith, proselytes were made to it, 
and the mission was not unsuccessful in St. Mary's. 

1640. 

The depriving of Captain Claiborne of Kent Island, and subduing the 
Protestants there to Lord Baltimore's government, before spoken of, left 
nothing for record this year, save that Father Altham, alias Gravener, 

* See 2 Bozman, 113. f 2 Streeter, p. 30. 



44 

died there, on the sixth of November. Father White remained at Pis- 
cataway, and reports the baptism of Tayac on the 5th of July, together 
with his queen and infant, and others of the principal men. And Father 
Fisher at St. Mary's proselyted as many Protestants as the others baptized 
Indians. 

But though he had been deprived of his Island, Captain Claiborne 
still conceived that he had a right to his property there. He was now 
returned from England, and was a resident of Virginia as before, and on 
the 8th of August, he made application for what he claimed on the 
Island, to the Governor and Council of Md. He was very coolly told that 
it was then possessed by right of forfeiture to the Lord proprietary, for 
certain crimes of murder and piracy whereof he was attainted, March 
24, 1638, by the judgment of the House of the General Assembly. 
This was certainly an unwise reply, and exhibits a looking down upon 
him,- and a contempt, which they afterward, no doubt, had reason to 
regret. 

1641. 

For this year, the narrative of Father White and others supplies us 
with nothing to our purpose, save only the arrival of another Priest» 
Father Kigby, nor does the proceedings of the Assembly, or any other 
source. 

1642. 

In the history of the religious dissensions in St. Mary's, we find record- 
ed, that on the 2 2d of March, P. M., there was a petition presented to 
the Assembly, by David WicklifF, in the name of the Protestant Catho- 
lics of Maryland.* The next day, the petition of the Protestants, it is 
said, was read, complaining against Mr. Thomas Gerard, for taking away 
the key of the Chapel, and carrying away the books. The prefixing of 
the title Protestant to Catholics, shows that the petitioners were not 
Roman Catholics ; and the aflBxing the name Catholics to that of Prot- 
estant, shows that they were not of the Puritan party of the Church of 
England, then in the Colony. Mr. Gerard being charged to make an- 
swer, upon the hearing of the prosecutors and of his defense, he was or- 
dered to bring the books and the key taken away, to the place where 
they had them, and pay a fine of 500 lbs. tobacco, a little upwards of 
$22, towards the maintenance of the first Minister that should arrive. 
Mr. Bozman remarks — " As Mr. Gerard must have been a man of con- 

* 2 Bozman, 199, 200. 



45 

siderable note at this time in the province, and probably a zealous Ro- 
man Catholic, being the lord or owner of St. Clement's Manor, which 
comprehended very nearly the whole of St. Clement's hundred — this ex- 
aggerated fine demonstrates, that the Protestants must have possessed 
at this early period, a very great influence in the Colony, as they natu- 
rally indeed might be supposed to have, from the supremacy of the 
mother country." And we are shown here clearly, that as yet, eight 
years from the first settlement of the Colony, there was no Protestant 
minister in it! 

Another fact, which may be mentioned here, is, that on the 6th of 
April, Captain William Claiborne, then a resident of Virginia, was ap- 
pointed " the King's Treasurer, in the dominion of Virginia, for Ufe."* 
This appointment shows, that though by the decision of the Lords Com- 
missioners, he had lost his Island, yet that he had not thereby lost favor 
with the Kino-. It was no doubt given him, as some compensation for 
his loss by their decision ; and the leading ones of the Commissioners who 
gave their decision against him, were not now at hand to advise — they had 
been succeeded by others. It was probably the most lucrative oflBce in 
Virginia. It also eflfectually refutes the charge of his having turned Pres- 
byterian ; for it came not from the Presbyterian Parliament, then in the 
ascendant in England, but from the King, and after his separation from 
the Parliament, and having abandoned London. Besides, " so zealous 
and firm had the Colony of Virginia hitherto been, in the support of the 
Church of England, that shortly after the arrival of Sir William Berkley as 
Governor of that province in 1639, several laws had been made against 
the Puritans, though there were as yet none among them ; and so rigor- 
ous were these laws, that none but conformists, in the strictest and most 
absolute sense, were permitted to reside in the colony."f Yet Captain 
Claiborne resided there, and was on the side of the King, not with the 
Parliament. 

During this year, however, ii is stated that three Puritan ministers 
came to Virginia from Massachusetts, and were kindly entertained by 
some private persons. In the preceding year, Mr. Richard Bennett, in 
the name of some other gentlemen, had gone to Boston to desire that 
such ministers might be sent. But though they came, their residence 
was short, for they returned the next summer; and that, no doubt, be- 
cause the Assembly of Virginia this year, had passed an Act to prevent 
dissenting ministers from preaching and propagating their doctrines in 

* 1 Hazzard, 493. t 2 Burk, 67. 2 Boz., 198, 9. 



46 

the colony.* The Governor and Council — and Captain Claiborne was 
one of that Council — issued an Order, that all such persons as would 
not conform to the discipline of the Church of England, should depart 
the country by a certain day ; yet it appears that an independent Church 
was now founded and must have had some few members These things 
are referred to, because three at least of the individuals mentioned, will 
be seen hereafter, to have much to do in Maryland history. 

One of the three ministers mentioned above, was William Thompson, 
a native of England, and originally, among the primitive Puritans of 
Lancashire. He was the first minister of Braintree, Massachusetts, and 
was now sent to Virginia.t But it would seem, instead of returning to 
Massachusetts, on leaving Virginia, that he came to Maryland and set- 
tled here — where after a while we shall hear of him. 

Ten days previous to the date of Claiborne's appointment, just spoken 
of, March 26th, " Lord Baltimore was brought before the House of Lords, 
on charges which are not now known ; in consequence of which, he was 
placed under heavy bonds not to leave the kingdom.J He had thus 
come under the suspicions of Parliament, if he was not indeed obnox- 
ious to them. Whether these charges had anything to do with the 
management of his colony or not, yet "certain it is, that from this time, 
he manifested great anxiety to avoid every act which would expose him 
to the charge of contravening, by his colonial policy, the established laws 
of the realm. His firmness in this particular, and his watchfulness in 
regard to compromising his proprietary rights, even placed him in oppo- 
sition to the Jesuit missionaries in the colony, to whose aid he refused 
for a time, to allow others to be sent, unless they would pledge them- 
selves to make their practices conformable to the policy of the English 
Government, and leave him the full exercise of his prerogatives." They 
did thus pledge themselves, and in October two came over. But, says 
the narrative, " our reasons being heard, and the thing itself being more 
clearly understood, they easily fell in with our opinion."§ And that 
opinion was, as expressed to the Governor and Secretary by them, that 
to enforce the law against religious fraternities, would expose them to 
excommunication, and the displeasure of Almighty God ! The priests 
triumphed, and Lord Baltimore, for the present, had to give way. 



* Beverly, 229. 1 Oldmixon, 201. 

f 2 Bozman, 198, note, and Allen's Biog. Diet., Art. Thompson. 

X Streeter, pp. 29, 30. § Father Wliite and others, p. 42. 



47 

In September of this year, Mr. Bozman estimates the population of ' E'^' 
Kent Island at 365, and that of Kent at 535,* — 900 in all. _j 

The narrative of Father White and others, shows that there was this 
year three priests. Fathers, Fisher the superior, at St. Mary's, White at 
Piscataway, and Rigby at Mattapany — together with three coadjutors, 
two of whom had come over this year. Besides reporting some miracles, 
it is stated that Father White was detained during the winter, while 
going up the Potomac, for some weeks at a village near by, and that its 
chief and others of its principal men, received the faiih of Christ and 
baptism. Not long after, the young Empress of Piscataway was baptized 
at St, Maray's, where she had been educated. And almost at the same 
time, the town called Port Tobacco, to a great extent, received the faith 
with baptism, to the number of 130. The young queen of Patuxent, 
with her mother, were converted. But no proselytes are reported. This 
is the last report from the Jesuit Fathers for eleven years. 

1643, 

On the 15th of April, having appointed Giles Brent, Esq., as his deputy, 
during his absence, Governor Calvert sailed for England. It is said, tbat 
in consequence of difficulties in the Government of the province, he went 
over, in order to have personal consultation with his brother, Lord Balti- 
more, who declared his intention of visiting Maryland, but failed to do so. 

Some time in the fall of this year, the Earl of Warwick was appointed 
Governor in Chief and Lord High Admiral of the American Colonies, 
with a Council of five peers and twelve commoners to assist him. This 
looked, certainly, as if the Parliament, by whom they were appointed, 
intended to subject Maryland and the other colonies to their jurisdiction, 
but it does not appear that any steps were actually taken to effect it, 
though it may account for Lord Baltimore's not leaving England, In 
the colony, there was much trouble occasioned by war with the Indians. 

1644. 

On the 20th of January, Richard Ingle, a captain of a ship engaged 
in the colonial trade, was the subject of an attempted arrest on the charge 
of high treason against his Majesty .f His vessel was seized, but he him- 
self escaped. The colony, as well as Lord Baltimore, unquestionably, for 
the time being, took sides with the King against the Parliament, and 
Ingle's men are said to have been tampered with, to carry the ship 

» 2 Bozman, 237. ' f 2 Bozman, 271. 



48 

to Bristol where the King then was * Hostilities with the Indians also 
still continued and difficulties occurred between the acting Governor and 
the Secretary. In September, Governor Calvert returned, bringing with 
him a new commission ; one peculiarity of which was, that henceforth 
those who received lands, were required to take an oath of fidelity to 
Lord Baltimore. This, as the sequel will show, was the source of seri- 
ous difficulties. 

It appears from an executive document, issued towards the end of this 
year, that Captain Claiborne, by means of a military and naval force, 
regained possession of Kent Island.f So quickly had it been done, and 
so entirely in accordance with the wishes of the people of that Island, 
that upon rumor of what had been done, the Governor had to send out 
spies or agents, in order " to learn with what force he did it, what strength 
he is of those at sea or shore, what his intents are, and how long he 
means to stay." 

In July previous, the King had lost the whole north of England, and 
" the estates of those who took part with the King," (and so Lord Balti- 
mote had done thus far,) " were considered by Parliament as liable to 
confiscation or sequestration, whenever the fortune of war should enable 
them to do so."J But whether Captain Claiborne acted under any au- 
thority of Parliament, Mr. Bozman confesses he has no information. 
The existing difficulties, however, at St. Mary's, presented a tempting 
opportunity, and knowing that he should meet with no opposition from 
Parliament, then in the ascendant, he embraced it. And any one, who 
knows any thing of the then existing antipathy of Protestants against 
the Romanists, may readily imagine, that the Kent Islanders were quite 
willing to escape from under Lord Baltimore's Government; and so will- 
ing were they, that Governor Calvert learned nothing of Captain Clai- 
borne's success from them. The Island had come under Protestant rule 
again. Captain Claiborne had been expelled from the government and 
pessession of his Island for more than five years. But now, having re- 
gained it, he was proclaimed at St. Mary's, an enemy of the province, 
and all intelligence or correspondence with him forbidden at peril. § 
There is not a particle of proof, however, that he had forsaken his King 
and benefactor, or that he had arranged himself under the banners of 
the Parliament, and perhapses and probabilities are quite as good in his 
favor as against him. It appears that Governor Calvert made " an ex- 
pedition to Kent," but was not successful.! 

* 2 Bozman, 691. | 2 Bozman, 287. J 2 Bozman, 289. 

§ 2 Bozman, 288. \ 2 Bozman, 290. 



49 

1645. 

Early in February of this year, during a session of the Assembly, 
Captain Ingle, who, in January of the last year, had been proclaimed 
guilty of high treason against his Majesty, in St. Mary's, and fled, — act- 
ing now, it is said, under a commission from Parliament, — surprised and 
took St. Mary's by force, and Governor Calvert fled to Virginia. Many 
of the friends of Lord Baltimore were driven from the province, and the 
Jesuit Fathers were seized and sent to England for trial,* and their 
Mission, for the time being, was thus broken up. 

The narrative of Father White and others for 1670,f states, — speak- 
ing of an event alleged to have occurred in 1646, — " that there were 
at the time, certain soldiers, unjust, plunderers, Englishmen indeed by 
birth, of the heterodox faith, who coming the year before (1645) with a 
fleet, had invaded with arms almost the entire Colony, had plundered, 
burnt, and finally having abducted the priests, and driven the Governor 
himself into exile, had reduced it to a miserable servitude." And in a 
letter to Lord Baltimore from the Assembly, dated April 21, 1649, they 
say, " great and many have been the miseries and calamities and other 
sufierings, which your poor distressed people, inhabitants of this province, 
have sustained and undergone here, since the beginning of the heinous tq- 
hoiWoVi, first j)ut in practice hy that pirate I'^'jle, and afterwards, for al- 
most two years' continuance by his complices and confederates, in which 
time, most of your lordship'' s loyal friends here were spoiled of their whole 
estate, and sent away^ as banished persons out of the province ; those 
few, that remained, were plundered and deprived in a manner, of all 
livelihood and subsistence, only breathing under that intolerable yoke, 
which they were forced to bear under those rebels, which then assumed 
the government of your Lordship's province unto themselves. Our suf- 
ferings were violent like a tempest.''^ The misrule of Ingle and his asso- 
ciates is here depicted in strong terms by Lord Baltimore's loyal friends 
— the Romanists and others. 

This loss of the government by Lord Baltimore, has been called usually 
Claiborne's and Ingle's rebellion. If it is so called by Lord Baltimore's 
friends, because each gained possession of his respective Colony, at or near 
the same time, no material objection can be made. But there are no doc- 
uments to show that they were identified. " Claiborne can be shown to 
have been in his place in the Virginia Legislature, when Ingle made his 
demonstration on St. Mary's ; and during the time of the occupancy of 

* Streeter, 33, 34. f P. 45. X - Bozman, 665. 

4 



50 

Maryland, by tlie invaders, to have been a regular attendant on the 
Courts of that Colony, where his official duties as Treasurer, required 
him to be present."* Besides, the public documents of the day do not 
associate Claiborne and Ingle together. Thus, on the Proclamation of 
Governor Calvert, Jan. 1, 1645, Richard Thompson, planter, only is asso- 
ciated with Captain William Claiborne.f Thus, on the proclamation of 
pardon of March 4, 1648, after the province of St. Mary's was retaken, 
Governor Green says,J " Whereas, sundry of the inhabitants of this 
province, by the instigation of one Richard Ligle, have unfortunately 
run themselves into a rebellion," &c., and " are now returned unto obe- 
dience again," &c., "I do hereby * * grant a general absolute and free 
pardon unto every and singular the inhabitants residing within this 
province, * * excepting Richard Ingle, mariner."^ He only was thus 
excepted. So in his granting a new seal, August 12, 1648,§ Lord Balti- 
more says, " Whereas, our great Seal of the province of Maryland was 
treacherously and violently taken away from them by Richard Ingle or 
his complices, in or about February, 1645." So in his commission to 
his Master General of the same date,|| he speaks of Richard Ingle and 
his complices and again in his commission to the Commander of the Isle 
of Keut,^ he speaks precisely in the same way. 

But in his commission to Governor Stone, August 6, 1648, he gives 
him power to grant pardons, &c.** " So as such pardon or pardons ex- 
tend not to the pardoning of William Claiborne, heretofore of the Isle 
of Kent, and now or of late of Virginia, or of his complices in their late 
rebellion, * * nor of Richard Ingle, nor John Durford, mariner," (fee. 
Instead thus as being considered by Lord Baltimore, as engaged in the 
same rebellion, they are by him clearly distinguished as two distinct 
parties. So in the commission to the Governor and Council, August 
12th, I648,ft he forbids the repeal of any act, <fec., whereby William 
Claiborne was, or is attainted, — Ingle is not mentioned. All this is proof 
that, in that day they were not considered as associated and were distin- 
guished as not having been. 

1646. 

Nothing is found touching our subject this year. Captain Claiborne 
was in possession of Kent Island, and Ingle and his associates of St. 
Mary's, — at least partially. 

* Streeter, 34. f 2 Bozman, 228 % 2 Bozman, 641. 

§ 2 Bozman, 651. \ 2 Bozman, 652. T[ 2 Idem, 653. 

** 2 Bozman, 645. ff 2 Bozman, 654, 



51 

164Y. 

Towards the close of the last year, Governor Calvert returned from 
Virginia, with a body of soldiers,* and surprised all those who had com- 
bined against him, and cast them into prison,f and thus recovered again 
the Government of St. Mary's, in which he was specially aided by those 
who were his loyal friends of that Colony. They also paid on defraying 
the expenses of the soldiers, 60,000 lbs. of tobacco, which say they "is 
far more than all our recovered estates in the province were then worth." 
And having gained St. Mary's, he turned his attention towards Kent 
Island. On the 16th of January, therefore, he laid an embargo upon all 
persons and vessels, that no intelligence might be communicated, or 
practiced with foreigners during this time of war, in which he £ays,t " I 
d© hereby forbid all persons now being in the county of St. Mary's, that 
they presume not to go, or attempt to go out of the county of St. Mary's, 
without acquainting me first therewith, and my leave to do so, and that 
no person entertain any communication, or give any entertainment to 
any one, coming into the province or from the Isle of Kent," &c. 

After having done this, he went on with his work, and seems to have 
succeeded, in April, in having reduced Kent Island again under his gov- 
ernment, and took possession of it in person. Eleven are mentioned as 
having been pardoned, and taken the oath of fealty to Lord Baltimore ; the 
others fled. Those thus fleeing doubtless went over on to the main land 
and settled there. Robert Vaughan, a Protestant, was now appointed the 
Commander of the Island. Captain Claiborne had had possession there 
for nearly three years, nor was this the last time that he came into pos- 
session of the Island. 

On the 9th of June, Governor Calvert died, at about the age of 40, 
having previous to his death, named Thomas Green to succeed him. 

1648. . 7 

During the last few years, tliere appears to have been a material de- 
crease of population. Judging from the votes in the Assembly of Janu- 
ary of this year, Kent Island had a population less than 140; and St. 
Mary's not more than 250. The decrease had been more than one half. I 

On the l7th of August, Lord Baltimore appointed William Stone 
Esq., as the Governor of his province ; but he does not appear to have 
entered upon the duties of his office, till the middle of April of next year. 

* 2Bozman, 296, ■)• 2 Idem, 666. ^1 2 Ibid, 299. 



52 

Captain William Stone, as it is shown in his commission,* was from North- 
ampton County, Virginia, and had undertaken " in some short time, to 
procure five hundred people, of British or Irish descent, to come from 
other places, and plant and reside within the province of Maryland." 
He had been the High Sheriff of that county, and as Mr. John Langford, 
Lord Baltimore's former Roman Catholic High Sheriff, in a pamphlet 
published in London, 1655, states, was "well known to be a zealous 
and well affected Protestant ;" nay, " he was generally known to have 
been always zealously affected to the Parhament." 

The oath which Lord Baltimore prescribed for him, in entering on his 
oflBce as Governor, is a document of much interest, and so far as religion 
is concerned, is as follows.f " I will not by myself, nor any person, direct- 
ly or indirectly, trouble, molest, or discountenance any person whatsoever 
in said provijice, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, and in particular 
no Hornan Catholic, for, or in respect to his or her religion, nor in his 
or her free exercise thereof, within said province, so as that they he not un- 
faithful to his said Lordship, or molest or conspire against the civil gov- 
ernment established here under him, nor will I make any difference of 
persons in conferring rewards, offices, or favors, proceeding from the au- 
thority which his lordship hath conferred upon me, as his lieutenant 
here, for, or in respect to their said religion, respectively, but merely, as 
I shall find them faithful and well deserving of his Lordship, and to the 
best of my understanding, endowed with moral virtues and abilities, 
fitting for such rewards, offices and favors, wherein mj prime end and 
aim, from time to time shall be, the advancement of his said lordship^s 
service here, and the public unity and good of the province, tvithout any 
partiality to any, or any other sinister end whatsoever, and if any other 
oflScer, or person whatsoever, shall, during the time of my being his lord- 
ship^s lieutenant without my consent or privity, molest, or disturb any 
person, within his jirovince, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, merely 
for, or in respect of his or her free religion, or free exercise thereof, upon 
notice or complaint thereof made to me, I will apply my poiver and au- 
thority, to relieve and protect any person so molested, or troubled, 
whereby he may have right done him for any damage lohich he shall 
suffer in that kind, and to the utmost of my power, will cause all and 
every such person, or persons, as shall molest or trouble any other person 
or persons, in that manner, to be punished." 

Dr. Hawks,J taking the parts of this oath not in italics, and leaving 

* 2 Bozman, 642. f 2 Bozman, 648. $ Eccl. Contr. Md. 



53 

out all the rest, says, " tbat there is no prouder tribute to the memory of 
Cecil Calvert, than is found in this oath of office, which, from 1636, he 
prescribed for his Governors." It is to be presumed, that he had not 
seen the oath entire itself, but seen it only as stated by Chalmers, whose 
authority he gives. Now Chalmers says,* "in the oath taken by the 
Governor and Council, between the years 1637 and 1657, there was 
the following clause," stating the oath as Dr. Hawks has done. B. 
Mayer, Esq., remarks,f that " the statement of Chalmers has been held to 
be indefinite, as to whether the oath Avas taken from 1637 to 1657, or 
whether it was taken between those dates. But if the historian did not 
mean to say, that it had been administered first in 1637, and continued 
afterwards, why would he not have specified any other, as the beginning 
year, as well as 1637 ? * * Chalmers was too accurate a writer to 
use dates so loosely," &c. Now, the truth is, as stated by Chalmers, 
that the oath was, as we have given it, administered to the Governor 
between the years which he specifies ; still, his statement is deceptive. 
What are the facts in the case? In 1634, Leonard Calvert became the 
Governor of the province ; and history records no oath of office which 
he took, until the one ordered by the Assembly of 1638, which is this.J 
" I do swear, that whilst I am a member of this province, I will bear true 
faith unto the right honorable Cecelius, Lord proprietary of this province, 
and his heirs, — saving my allegiance to the crown of England — and the 
said province and him and them, and his and their due rights and juris- 
dictions, and all and every of them will aid, defend and maintain to the 
utmost of my power : the peace and welfare of the people I will ever pro- 
cure, as far as I may ; to none will I delay or deny right, but equal justice 
will administer in all things, to my best skill, according to the laws of 
this province. So help me God." This he caused to be administered to 
himself, March 20, 1638.§ But why this oath, if he had taken the 
other spoken of before ? Then again we have the commissions given 
him in 1637, 1642 and 1644, neither of which contain any form of oath 
to be taken by him. During Governor Calvert's absence in England, in 
1643 and 4, Mr. Brent, as we have seen, was appointed the temporary 
Governor. In April 15, 1643,|| he was qualified by taking the following 
oath : " You swear, that you will be true and faithful to the right honor- 
able Cecelius, Lord proprietary of this province of Maryland, and that 
you will defend and maintain to the utmost of your power, all his just 

* Page 235. f Calvert and Penn, 46. X 2 Bozman, 608. 

§ 2 Bozman, 140. || 2 Ibid, 254. 



54 

rights, interests, royal jurisdictions and seignory, in, to, and over the said 
province, and the islands thereto belonging ; and that you will faithfully 
serve him as his lieutenant of the said province ; and in all other offices 
committed to your charge, you vfill do equal right and justice, to the 
poor and to the rich, within the said province, after your cunning, wit and 
power, according to the laws of this province ; you shall delay or deny 
to no man right or justice ; you shall not know of any attempt against 
his lordship's right and dominion, in, to, and over the said province, and 
the people therein, but you shall resist and oppose it to the utmost of 
your power, and make the same known with convenient speed to his 
lordship ; and you shall in all things, faithfully counsel and advise his 
lordship according to your heart and conscience. So help you God." 
This, beyond all doubt, is evidence sufficient, that so late as 1643, there 
was not any oath in existence, prescribed by Lord Baltimore as given by 
Chalmers. If there was, why was it not administered to Governor Brent 
— or why this? 

At the death of Governor Calvert, in 1647, Mr. Green was appointed 
Governor. Hut nothing is recorded of any oath as taken by him. 
The truth is, that in neither of the commissions of Lord Baltimore to 
his Governors, previous to the one given to Captain Stone, was any oath 
to be taken, prescribed by him. Captain Stone's is the first which he 
ever appointed, — and appointed in the words as given by us, in August 
17, 1648. 

Now then, does this oath propose toleration, as now understood, to all 
religious sects and denominations of Christians, conscientiously differing 
from each other ? Unquestionably no such thing is specified. The word 
toleration is not in it; but 2^^otect is in it. The Governor is made to 
swear, "I will apply my power and authority, to relieve aT\d protect any 
person so molested." As before specified, Protection was the idea of that 
day, not toleration ; that was of after growth. Nor was it the object of 
the oath to grant toleration. Yielding to the force of circumstances, 
the complete ascendency of the English Parliament, — the danger there- 
from of losing his Colonial Government, if not possessions, and consider- 
ing the large proportion of Protestants in his province. Lord Baltimore 
found it advisable to appoint a Protestant Governor, a Protestant Secre- 
tary, and one half of the other members of the Council Protestants. 
And what clearly is the main object of this oath, to be taken by this 
Protestant Governor ? — not simply to protect Episcopalians, Presbyterians 
and Puritans. For the two latter, the Government at home would cer- 
tainly see to ; and the officers now appointed also. JVo, it was that his 



55 

Governor should not molest, trouble or discountenance any person what- 
soever, in the said province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ — ix 
PARTICULAR NO RoMAN Catholic, the vcry thing which Chalmers left out. 
And this is no new idea or statement of our own. A cotemporary 
writer — and he, Lord Baltimore's Roman Catholic High Sherift' of Kent 
Island, his friend — so states the matter in his pamphlet of 1655. He 
says* that Lord Baltimore " appointed this oath to be taken by the 
aforesaid officers, when he made Captain Stone Governor, and Mr. 
Thomas Hatton, Secretary, and others of his council there ; who, being 
of a different judgment in religion from himself, his lordship thought it 
but reasonable and fit that, as he did oblige the Governor by oath, not 
to disturb any there who professed to believe in Jesus Christ, so to express 
the Roman Catholics in particular, luho loere of his own judgment in 
matters of religion:^ And Mr. Langford not only shows thus, why the 
oath was made thus specific, but also the time tvhen it was prescribed, when 
Captain Stone was made Governor in 1648. This was, indeed, " betiveen 
1637 and 1657." It was unquestionably a wise and good measure. 
But it was what Lord Baltimore had not done before ; and what he did 
now, under the pressure of very peculiar circumstances. The retaining 
of his possessions was clearly the moving cause, and for this who could 
blame him ? But how an oath, which had the protection of Romanists 
as its special object, should have become so exceedingly prolific in non- 
sense about " Catholic Toleration in Maryland," it is difficult for us to 
perceive. There was never a givsser perversion of the simple facts of 
history. 

1649. 

The first Session of the Assembly, under Governor Stone, was held in 
April, the 2d day. Of this Assembly, no Journal of its proceedings 
remains.f " But there are strong grounds to believe, that the majority 
of the members were Protestants, if not Protestants of the puritanic 
order." It has been before stated, that Governor Stone, and a majority 
of the members of the Council, were Protestants, and there are 
strong reasons for a supposition, that a majority of the burgesses or 
representatives " were Protestants also, inasmuch as they certainly Avere 
at the next session of 1650."J They sat in one house, and not, as in the 
next year, in two, says Bozman. Bacon thinks otherwise. But the first 
law authorizing the division into two separate houses, was passed 1650. 



* Langford, 26. f 2 Bozman, 349. X 2 Bozman, 354. 



56 

If, therefore, there were no Burgesses from Kent, and eleven from St. 
Mary's, as in 1650, and as of these five were Roman Catholics, and the 
others Protestants, then adding the two Roman Catholic Councillors to 
the five Roman Catholic Burgesses, there would be seven Romanists, and 
adding the Governor, Secretary and two Protestant Councillors, to the 
six Protestant Burgesses, there would be ten Protestants, — giving the 
Protestants a majority of three. 

And what was the population of St. Mary's? That of Kent was con- 
fessedly Protestant. In St. Mary's, Hammond, in his pamphlet of 
1656,* a prejudiced opponent of the Protestants, says, " an assembly 
was called throughout the whole country," in 1650, "and because there 
were some few papists that first inhabited these parts themselves, and 
others of being diflerent judgments, an act was passed," &c. The Assem- 
bly's letter to Lord Baltimore of 1648,f says, that during Ingle's rebellion, 
" most of your lordship's loyal friends here, were spoiled of their whole 
estate, and sent away as banished persons out of the province, — those 
few that remained were plundered," &c., so that, as they said, in 1648, 
they were not all worth 60,000 lbs. tobacco — 12,664. On the other 
hand, they state, that in the first Assembly, after Governor Calvert had 
regained his province, that of 164Y, " two or th-ee only excepted^ it con- 
sisted of that rebelled party and his — Governor Calvert's — professed ene- 
mies." And how long afterwards was it, that the Protestant Governor 
Stone engaged to bring in five hundred colonists — Protestants, of course ? 
We may thus see, without going further into proofs, that Mr. Bozman 
had strong grounds for believing as he stated. It has indeed been 
said, that now, and even forty-three years afterwards, in 1692, the Ro- 
man Catholics were a majority in Maryland ;J and the only proof offered, 
is a statement made by the then Governor Sharpe, in 1758 — sixty-six 
years after the last date referred to ! ! But there are testimonies nearer 
to 1649, which tell a different tale. Dr. Hawks§ says, " it is indeed true, 
that at this time, 1692, from the testimony of an eye witness, there 
were thirty Protestants to one Papist in the province."! Dr. Bray, 
whose integrity and competency no one can question, in a Memorial to 
the House of Bishops in England, in lYOO, says, "the papists in this 
province — Maryland — appear to me, not to be above a twelfth part of 
the inhabitants." So much for the population of the province, and the 
Assembly of 1649. 

* Leah and Rachel, 22. \ 2 Bozman, 665. 

X MeSherry, the Romanist historian of Maryland. 

§ Maryland Eccl. Contr., 59. I| Chalmer's note, 24, p. 376. 



57 

In this Assembly was passed the celebrated "Act concerning Reli- 
gion,"* of which the following is an abstract : — " Forasmuch, as in a 
well governed and Christian Commonwealth, matters concerning religion 
and the honor of God, ought in the first place to be taken into serious 
consideration, and endeavored to be settled, be it therefore ordained and 
enacted," 

1. That whosoever shall blaspheme God, or shall deny our Saviour 
Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, or shall deny the Holy Trinity, the 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, or the Godhead of any of the said persons 
of the Trinity, or the unity of the Godhead, or shall use, or utter re- 
proachful speeches, words, or language concerning them, shall be pun- 
ished with death, and confiscation, or forfeiture of all his goods, to the 
Lord proprietary. 

2. That whosoever shall use or utter any reproachful words, or 
speeches concerning the blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Saviour, 
or the holy Apostles, or Evangelists, shall for the first offense be fined 
£5 sterling, or if not able to pay, be publicly whipped, and imprisoned 
during pleasure, &c.; for the second offense, £10, &c., and for the third 
shall forfeit all his lands and goods, and be banished from the province ! 

3. That whosoever shall, in a reproachful way, call any one an Her- 
etic, Schismatic, Idolater, Puritan, Presbyterian, Independent, Popish 
priest, Jesuit, Jesuited Papist, Lutheran, Anabaptist, Brownist, Antino- 
mian, Barrowist, Roundhead, Separatist, or any other name, or term, 
shall forfeit £10 sterling, or if not able, be publicly whipped and im- 
prisoned, till the party offended be satisfied by the offender asking for- 
giveness publicly ! 

4. That whosoever shall profane the_ Sabbath or Lord's day, called 
Sunday, by frequent swearing, drunkenness, or by any uncivil or disorderly 
recreation, or by working when absolute necessity doth not require, shall, 
for the first offense forfeit 2s. 6d., for the second 5s., for the third 10s., or 
if unable to pay, shall for the first and second offense, be imprisoned, till 
he shall publicly acknowledge this scandal and offence against God and 
the civil government, and for the third offense, be also publicly whipped ! 

5. "And whereas, the enforcing of the conscience in matters of religion, 
hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence," where " prac- 
ticed, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this prov- 
ince, and the better to preserve mutual love and unity, be it enacted," 
that no one professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be troubled, mo- 

* 2 Bozman, 661. 



58 

lested, or discountenanced for bis religion, or the free exercise thereof, 
nor compelled to the belief or exercise of any other religion against bis 
consent, so as he be not unfaithful to his Lordship, or molest or conspire 
against the civil government. Every person offending, to pay 20 shillings 
sterling, or if he refuse, or is unable to pay, be publicly whipped and 
imprisoned ! 

It Avill be perceived that this was simply a peace act, " to preserve 
mutual love and unity." So says Mr. Langford,* "the intent of it being, 
to prevent any disgusts between those of different judgments in religion 
there," in the colony. So too Mr. Hammond,f both Lord Baltimore's 
friends, and may be presumed to know something of his intentions. The 
Act, indeed, compelled no one's belief; it only by penalties restrained 
words and actions which were reproachful, and calculated to give disturb- 
ance. The policy of so legislating is questionable, but the intention was 
certainly good. Religion, however, needs not the aid of man's legislation, 
but good government does in truth need the aid of religion, and in some 
way must have it. 

This Act, however much of toleration it embraced, was not a toleration 
Act, and sustained by such penalties as it was, cannot be so considered. 
Protection therefore was all that it aimed to secure. It has, nevertheless, 
furnished ground for much eulogium on the Roman Catholic settlers of 
Maryland. But the Act not having originated with them, and only 
having been concurred in by them, their claim to any exclusive eulogium 
must be, as by some it has been, abandoned. This being done, it has 
then been claimed to have originated with Lord Baltimore. At the time 
of his appointing Governor Stone, he sent over sixteen iVcts or laws, to be 
enacted by the Assembly of Maryland. These laws were at once rejected 
by the Assembly. But from these laws, some were chosen and selected 
out, and enacted by this very Assembly of 1649. And it is claimed, 
that the xA.ct which we have been considering, was one which was then 
selected. It is probable that it was so. But there is no proof that it 
was passed just as it was sent out, or that it was not amended, or in 
any respect changed — none whatever. And if there were, he himself is 
proof, that it did not originate with him. His words in Governor Stone's 
commission, where he speaks of these sixteen Acts, are,l '' which said acts 
or laws WERE proposed unto us, for the good and quiet settlement of 
our colony." And this, his own testimony, is beyond doubt conclusive. 
The Act, however, no matter where it originated, was the joint and con- 

* Page 32. f Leah and Rachel, 22. % 2 Bozman, 654. 



59 

current act of tlie Romanist Lord Baltimore, the Protestant Governor 
and Council, and a Protestant House of Burgesses. And so far from 
conceding tbat the Assembly acted in subserviency to Lord Baltimore's 
judgment, precisely the opposite is the fact. He appointed bis officers 
in tbe colony, because they ivere of a different judgment in matters of 
religion from himself. And in tbis matter of religion so far from con- 
trolling tbem, bis concurrence was a concession to tbeir views. Tbe last 
part of tbe Act shows tbis conclusively. It is tbe very counterpart of 
what is found in "tbe agreement," submitted by the officers of tbe En- 
gbsb army to tbe consideration of their countrymen previous to Feb., 
1648, and demands, " tbat all who profess faith in God by Jesus Christ, 
however differing in judgment from the doctrine, discipline and worship 
publicly held forth, shall not be restrained from, hwt protected in, tbe ex- 
ercise of their faith and tbe practice of their religion, so they abuse not 
this liberty to the civil injury, or tbe disturbance of the public peace."* 
Tbis all know was a Puritan movement. 

In 1642, mention was made of William Thompson, a Puritan minis- 
ter, who left Virginia and is supposed to have come into Maryland. In 
tbe Assembly's letter of tbis year, they mention that, "whereas your 
lordship doth seem greatly distasted and disgusted at William Thomp- 
son, through some information which has been given your lordship of his 
comportment here, in aiding and siding with the rebels against your 
lordship's Governor and government, which information we do assure 
your lordship to be most false, your honor bath not a more faithful and 
cordial friend in tbe whole province, and showed to the utmost of bis 
ability, even before, in time of, and ever since the troubles here, that be 
is."f Seven years thus he had continued in the colony, and such is tbe 
account and character they give of him, — shov^'ing that though a Puritan, 
he was Lord Baltimore's friend, and was so testified of by this Protestant 
Assembly. 

In tbe above mentioned year, 1642,J as has before been stated, an 
Independent Church bad been formed in Virginia, with a few members. 
At this time they had increased to one hundred and eighteen. It was 
not a puritan party m the Church of England, as tbe puritans there still 
continued to be, but a separate, independent, and distinct organization. 



* Streeter's Maryland two hundred years ago, 46, and Neal's History of the 
Puritans, 2, 79. 
f 2 Bozman, 668. 
X 2 Bozman, 370. 



60 

In this year, says Leonard Strong, in his pamphlet of 1655, speaking of 
them, " Many, both of this congregated Church, and other well affected 
people in Virginia, being debarred from the free exercise of religion under 
the government of Sir William Berkeley, removed themselves into the 
province of Maryland, beihg thereunto invited by Captain William 
Stone, then Governor for Lord Baltimore, with promise of liberty in reli- 
gion and privileges of subjects." Such thus were some of the five hun- 
dred colonists which Governor Stone brought in with him. 

Bozman says,* " they were driven out" of Virginia, and a considera- 
"ble number of their members, about a hundred,f emigrated, probably in 
the spring and summer, to Maryland, and seated themselves at a place 
called by them Providence, but afterwards Ann Arundel, most probably 
on or near the spot on which the city of Annapolis now stands. Mr. 
Langford,J before referred to, says, that they were, by the Lord Balti- 
more''s special directions, received into Maryland. 

They refused, however, on their first coming, the oath of fidelity to 
Lord Baltimore, objecting to his "royal jurisdiction," "absolute domin- 
ion," &c., but more especially, that, in taking it, they must, as they said, 
swear to countenance and uphold anti-Christ, that is, the religion of the 
Papacy ; and for a year, therefore, they would not take out any patents 
of land. But a change in some of the terms of plantation having been 
made by Lord Baltimore, and the oath having been modified with his 
approval, they finally took out their patents, and made a permanent 
settlement. 

On the 20th of September, Robert Brooke, Esq., in England, obtained 
from Lord Baltimore himself, a commission as commandant of a county, 
newly set forth and erected,§ called Charles County. This County, as 
then constituted, lay on the southwest side of the Patuxent, and seems 
to have been, what is now contained in the three parishes on the Patux- 
ent, — perhaps the four, All Faith, St. Mary's ; Trinity, Charles ; and St. 
Paul's and Queen Anne, Prince George's. He must have settled, when 
he came over. East of Portobacco. Besides being made the commandant 
of the county thus erected, he was appointed also a member of the Coun- 
cil, and was probably, says Bozman, a Puritan. He was to transport into 
the province himself, his wife, and eight sons, and a great number of 
other persons, 

* 2 Bozman, 370. \ 2 Bozman, 405. | P. 6. § 2 Bozman, 376. 



61 

1650. 

The Assembly met this year, on the 5th of April. From St. Mary's 
there were eleven Burgesses, and two from Providence. These, together 
with the Governor, Secretary, Members of the Council and the Clerk of 
the Lower House, constituted the Assembly* The Governor, Secretary, 
two of the Council, six of the Delegates from St. Mary's, and the two [ 
from Providence, were Protestants. The other two Members of the 
Council, five of the Delegates from St. Mary's, and the one chosen Clerk, 
wel-e Roman Catholics ; being twelve of the former, and eight of the 
latter.! The religious denomination of each is here specified, because 
the religious denominations of that day were respectively the political 
parties, and their religion showed their party and politics. 

The first Act passed, was "for settling the present Assembly," by 
which two distinct Houses, apart from each other, were constituted; the 
Governor, Secretary and Council constituting the Upper, and the Bur- 
gesses the other. The Lower House organized by choosing James Cox, 
one of the Burgesses from Providence, a Protestant, their Speaker, and 
a Roman Catholic, Clerk. So that the Upper House had four Protest- 
ants to two Roman Catholics, and the Lower, eight Protestants to six 
Roman Catholics, and one of these, the Clerk, made a member by the 
House. The Burgess from Kent was a member of the Council, and by 
the Act, took his seat in the Upper House. 

The oath then taken by the members is worth noticing, as it shows 
something of the religious complexion of the Assembly. It was this :J 
" I do swear, that I will fsiithfully and truly, according to my heart and 
conscience, to the best of my understanding and ability, without favor, 
or affection, or self-ends, advise, consult and give my vote to all bills and 
other matters, wherein my advice or vote shall be required, during this 
Assembly, wherein my chief end and aim shall be the glory of God, in 
my endeavors for the advancement and promotion of the Lord proprie- 
taries just rights and privileges, and the public good of this province ; 
and will also keep secret during this Assembly, all such matters and 
things as shall be acted or debated," &c. Why this secresy was en- 
joined, is not now known. One however of the Romanist members of 
St. Mary's declined taking it, because, as he said, " he ought to be guided, 
in matters of conscience, by his spiritual council," and if he took the 
oath, he could not advise with such council. His seat was promptly de- 

« Bacon, 1650, chap. 1, et praeced. f 2 Bozman, 383, 672. 

\ 2 Bozman, 384. 



62 

dared vacant, and another, in three days afterwards, was appointed in 
his place. Nothing could show more palpably, how entirely he had 
committed the keeping of his conscience to the Jesuit priesthood. If 
the oath itself indicate the tone of religious principle prevalent in the 
Assembly, it was no ordinary civil Assembly. 

One of the early Acts passed at this Session, was " An Act prohibiting 
all compliance with Captain William Claiborne, in opposition to his 
Lordship's right and dominion over this province."* The preamble 
shows, that he still remained unexempted from pardon by Lord Balti- 
more, so that if taken by him, his life was forfeited. And it also shows, 
that the war was not at an end ; for that, in letters to the Governor, he 
had renewed his claim for Kent Island, and gave out, that he proposed 
to make an attempt to regain it. It enacted, therefore, that any one in 
the province assisting him, abetting or countenancing him, in any at- 
tempt, on the Isle of Kent, should be punished by death, and confisca- 
tion of lands, debts, goods and chattels. 

It may be worth while to recall to mind here, that Captain Claiborne 
and his settlement on Kent Island, were of the Church of England. And 
there appears nothing to show that they did not continue so. The Prov- 
idence Colony were Puritans, and not less ceilainly opposed to the 
Church of England, than to the Church of Rome. This is well known. 
The Protestant members of St. Mary's, we may have seen, must have 
been also, more or less Puritan, and they, therefore, as well as the Ro- 
manist members of that county, were alike united, in their opposition to 
the Church of England. The entire Lower House thus, were hostile to 
the religion of Claiborne and the Kent Islanders. The same may be 
seen to be true of a part of the Upper House, if not perhaps of the 
whole. Two were Romanists ; and the Governor, though a Protestant, 
was "zealously affected to the Parliament;" and we have no reason to 
think that the Protestant members of the Council were unlike him. 

Now, it will have been seen that Kent Island — County, as it was now 
called — was not represented in the Lower House. When Governor Stone 
issued his proclamation for the election of Burgesses, Kent County might 
make choice of as many as three. But instead of choosing three, only 
one was chosen, and he the Commandant of the County. As a member 
of the Council, he was by virtue of that office, a member of the Assembly 
without any election. So that when the Assembly divided into two 
Houses, the law declared him a member of the Upper House, and thus the 



* 2 Bozman, 391, 670. Bacon, 1650, Chap. 4. 



63 

Lower House liad no Burgess from that County. Besides this fact, it 
appears that the commandant was not very cordially chosen, for the re- 
turn of his election stated that he was chosen by only " a major part of the 
freemen," while those from Providence were chosen unanimously. The 
freemen therefore of Kent sent no one from among themselves. They 
consequently had no hand in passing the Act now spoken of against 
their old friend and proprietary, Claiborne. It was passed by those who, 
by their religion, were politically hostile to him, as well to those also of 
his religion. And we cannot wonder therefore that the Kent Islanders 
were no more forward to send their Burgesses to the Assembly. 

At this Session was also passed " an Act for the erecting Providence into 
a County, by the name of Ann Arundel County." It was so called, prob- 
ably,* from the maiden name of Lady Baltimore — then lately deceased. 
Lady Ann x\rundel was the daughter of Lord Arundel of Wardour. In 
the following July, Governor Stone visited Providence, and having organ- 
ized the County, appointed Mr. Edward Lloyd the Commandant thereof. 

In another Act of the Assembly, calledf " an Act of recognition of the 
lawful and undoubted right and title of the right honorable Cecelius, 
Lord Baron of Baltimore, absolute Lord and proprietary of Maryland," 
&c., the preamble has these words : " Great and manifold are the ben- 
efits, wherewith Almighty God hath blessed the colony first brought and 
planted within the province of Maryland, at your lorship's charge, and 
continued by your care and industry, in the happy restitution of a blessed 
peace unto us, being lately wasted with a miserable dissension and un- 
happy war. But more inestimable are the blessings poured upon this 
province, in planting Christianity among a people that knew not God, 
nor had heard of Christ. All which as we recognize and acknowledge, 
to be done and performed, next under God by your lordship's industry 
and pious intentions towards the advancement and propagation of Chris- 
tian religion, and the peace and happiness of this colony and province," 
&c. This, coming as it did from such an Assembly, is eulogy sufficient 
to gratify the warmest admirer of Lord Baltimore. With this, then, we 
conclude these sketches of Early Maryland History. 

In the view now taken, 

I. We have seen, that the first settlement in the territory, now known 
as Maryland, that of Kent Island, was made five years before Lord Balti- 
more's Colony came to St. Mary's, consequently that Maryland was not 
first settled by him. 

* 2 Bozman, 393. % Bacon, Laws of Maryland, 1650, Chap. 23. 



64 

II. We have seen, that tlie first settlers were of the Church of Eng- 
land, and that Church, with its Ministry and worship, was the first estab- 
lished on Maryland soil. And that of the colony brought over by Gov- 
ernor Calvert in 1634, a very considerable part were Protestants. Con- 
sequently, it cannot be said with truth that Maryland was first settled 
with Roman Catholics. 

III. We have seen, that toleration as now understood, was not an idea 
of that day; but i\idii 2>rotection was provided for in the Charter, to both 
Protestants and Romanists, under the Protestant authority by which it 
was issued. 

IV. We have seen again, that in 1650, sixteen years from the landing 
of Lord Baltimore's colony, the Government in the province, was in the 
hands of Protestants, and that, too, by Lord Baltimore's own appointment. 

V. We have seen, that now, in 1650, there were three counties. 

The first settled being Kent Island — and Protestant — having a Protest- 
ant Commandant. 

The second settled, that of St. Mary's, part Romanist and part 
Protestant; and so many of the latter were there now, that six out of 
the eleven delegates chosen to the Assembly were of that class. 

The third settled being that of Ann Arundel — ultra Protestant or Pu- 
ritan, with a Protestant Commandant. 

A fourth, that of Charles, had been created with a Protestant Com- 
mander. Mr. Brooke and his colony were Protestant, but they had 
not yet arrived. 

There were, thus, three distinct and separate Settlements within the 
Province, widely distant from each other. The first and the third were 
Protestant ; the second partly Romanist and partly Protestant ; over all, 
was a Government in the Province, whose Governor, Secretary of State, 
and two of the Council, being four to two, were Protestant ; and a majority 
of nine to five of the members chosen to the last Assembly. It is not to 
be questioned, but that the majority of the population was now Protestant. 

And there was, indeed, practical toleration. The three parties — 
Church of England men, Romanists and Puritans, — did live, side by 
side, in the Province; and possessed equal civil privileges, and were 
equally protected by the Charter and by oaths and laws ; but unfortu- 
nately they did not live in peace together — they were hostile in their 
dispositions towards each other and belligerent in their acts. This the 
further progress of our history but too painfully shows. 



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